A Right-Wing Wave on TikTok? Ideological Orientations, Platform Features, and User Engagement During the Early 2022 Election Campaign in Sweden

Abstract

While TikTok has established itself as a new platform for political communication, its role during elections remains understudied by researchers. In this article, we present a content analysis of actor dynamics and ideological content characteristics on TikTok during the early phase of the 2022 election campaign in Sweden, combined with an analysis of how political orientation and utilization of TikTok’s platform features impact user engagement. Results reveal that party youth organizations had a prominent presence during the campaign, while traditional party actors were less established. TikTok tends to lean toward right-wing content, with right-wing praise being a significant predictor of user engagement. Semiotic resources such as stickers and emoticons but also added music, were widely used platform features, but these features had no or weak negative effects on user engagement. Added speech, particularly when praising right-wing politics, positively influenced user engagement, suggesting the importance of verbal communication on a platform characterized by multimodal experimentation.