IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/tbitxx/v44y2025i7p1387-1400.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Stitch incoming: political engagement and aggression on TikTok

Author

Listed:
  • Bryan McLaughlin
  • Joshua Cloudy
  • Jeff Hunter
  • Brittany Potter

Abstract

This study examined how TikTok use relates to political engagement and aggression. Due to different imagined audiences , we expected TikTok use to be more strongly related with contentious political engagement than use of other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. In order to test these expectations, we conducted a survey with 700 U.S. adults. Results show that TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter use is positively related to online political engagement, but the nature of this engagement is very different. Facebook use is related to talking politics with friends and family, while TikTok use is related to talking with those who hold opposing views. Further, Facebook use is negatively related to agreeing that it is acceptable to be aggressive in political conversations, while TikTok use is positively related to believing that it is acceptable to be aggressive and to holding feelings of hatred for political opponents. Twitter use is unrelated to these outcome variables. These results suggest that TikTok users are more likely to partake in derisive and contentious political engagement.

Suggested Citation

  • Bryan McLaughlin & Joshua Cloudy & Jeff Hunter & Brittany Potter, 2025. "Stitch incoming: political engagement and aggression on TikTok," Behaviour and Information Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(7), pages 1387-1400, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:44:y:2025:i:7:p:1387-1400
    DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2024.2354436
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2354436
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2354436?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:44:y:2025:i:7:p:1387-1400. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/tbit .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.