| dc.description.abstract | On February 24, 2022, Russian troops entered Ukraine, starting the biggest war in Europe since World War II. Not only has the war in Ukraine taken place on physical battlefields, but differing views have also appeared in social media. It has been referred to as the first TikTok war. This thesis seeks to analyze how visible military content related to the war between Ukraine and Russia is portrayed on TikTok.
To gain a better understanding on how content creators on TikTok portrayed the Ukraine-war, the study is based on a qualitative analysis of 28 videos, highlighted by TikTok as the most relevant videos for the search terms Russia and Ukraine between September 21st and September 27th, 2022. A content analysis of the videos, as well as the tools and effects utilized, has been used to examine how content creators on TikTok portrayed the Ukraine-war. To gain a greater understanding of the dominant themes in these videos, the study employed a thematic analysis.
This study has shown that the videos showing military content rely to a large extent on visual means such as text, emojis, filters and light effects, as well as auditory means such as sound and music. These tools are all typical for the app. However, the videos in this study are not like your average TikTok-videos. Instead, these videos are reflecting a serious, ongoing war. Due to this, it is interesting to analyze how war-related videos, customized to fit the typical features of the TikTok, can be used to try to influence the viewer.
Showing strength was found to be the most dominant theme in these videos, including videos showing soldiers fit for fights, soldiers in action, and videos highlighting the heads of state or the defense of the warring countries. Such videos can both be used to show strength against the enemy, but also to show the people that they are ready to fight for their country.
This research contributes to the research on war and social media, by acquiring new knowledge about how such a popular application as TikTok can be used to portray an ongoing conflict. | en_US |
