Seminar: Fifteen Seconds of Fame: TikTok and the Democratization of Mobile Video on Social Media - (opens in a new window)Kevin Munger (Penn State University)

 14:00-15:00 (IST) Wednesday, February 10.

 Please register for this event (opens in a new window)here.

Abstract: TikTok has rapidly developed from a punchline for jokes about “kids these days" into a formidable force in American politics. The speed of this development is unprecedented, even in the rapidly-changing world of digital politics. Through a combination of hashtag and snowball sampling, we identify 5,495 TikTok accounts who primarily post about politics, allowing us to analyze trends in the posting, viewing and commenting behavior on 712,193 tiktoks they have uploaded. We test a number of theories about how the unique combination of a ordances on TikTok shapes how it is used for political communication.

About the speaker: Kevin Munger is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Social Data Analytics at Penn State University. His research looks at social media and other contemporary internet technology has changed political communication. Kevin has published research on the subject using a variety of methodologies, including textual analysis, field experiments, longitudinal surveys and qualitative theory. Kevin's research has appeared in leading journals like the American Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, Political Communication, and Political Science Research & Methods. His present interests include cohort conflict in American politics and developing new methods for social science in a rapidly changing world.