| dc.description.abstract | Due to the recent stay at home orders surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, young social
media users have found a new creative, activistic and comedic outlet through the platform
TikTok. The content shared on TikTok are short videos, any of which have the opportunity to
become viral if it is shared with the right audiences. The virality is what makes TikTok unique
and drives its users to constantly produce content. Just like on other social media platforms,
many different minority groups have found their place and their people on TikTok where
they share information, produce relevant jokes and communicate with each other. The
LGBTQ+ community is among those groups and some content creators on the platform try to
use TikTok’s possible virality affordances to spread awareness, destigmatize LGBTQ+ people
and educate others on sensitive or unknown topics surrounding gender and/orsexuality.
This thesis aims to find how the video creators are motivated to share this type of LGBTQ+
content which could result in social impact, especially on a smaller scale known as everyday
activism. Therefore, the main research question is: how are LGBTQ+ TikTok creators
motivated to create everyday activism within their networked identity and beyond?
The theoretical basis for this thesis will come from three separate understandings.
First, how TikTok and its affordances are situated within the general understanding of social
media and the platform society. Second, the notion of everyday activism is explained. Third,
the concepts of online, narrative and networked identity will be discussed and how these
work together in this thesis. Methodologically, Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis is used
to first analyse the LGBTQ+, activistic, TikTok video content as well the affordances offered
by the platform for the textual analysis. Secondly, to interview LGBTQ+ TikTok content
creators for the discursive practice and third to combine these different analyses and come
to an understanding of how these kinds of videos are situated within the social practice.
It was found that sharing stories of everyday smaller struggles by LGBTQ+ as well as
bigger personal hardships and experiences of discrimination, in many different formats, did
create moments of everyday activism in those who viewed and commented on the TikTok
content. The TikTok users shared that posting those types of personal stories online and
receiving positive, as well as negative feedback in some cases, helped in keeping them
motivated to continue posting their LGBTQ+ life online. | |
