Media and Communication (ISSN: 2183–2439) 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v11i2.6390 Article TikTok and Political Communication: The Latest Frontier of Politainment? A Case Study Laura Cervi 1, *, Santiago Tejedor 1 , and Fernando García Blesa 2 1 Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain 2 General Studies Program, University of Lima, Peru * Corresponding author (laura.cervi@uab.cat) Submitted: 30 October 2022 | Accepted: 17 January 2023 | Published: in press Abstract TikTok is without any doubt the most popular social media among Gen Zers. Originally born as a lip‐syncing app, it can be exploited in different ways; as such, it represents a new fertile space for political communication. In this vein, previous studies have shown that politicians all over the planet are joining the platform as a tool to connect with younger audiences. This study examines the use of TikTok in the last presidential elections in Peru. Following an affordance‐based approach, we analyze all the TikToks published by the main candidates (Pedro Castillo, Keiko Fujimori, Rafael Lopez Aliaga, Hernando de Soto, and George Forsyth) during the electoral campaign, to understand if and how candidates have integrated this plat‐ form as part of their electoral strategy and what kind of content they publish and share. Through a content analysis that combines quantitative and qualitative elements, we demonstrate that, although all the analyzed politicians have opened TikTok accounts, they do not seem to take full advantage of the platform’s affordances displaying a top‐down communica‐ tion style with almost no deliberative nor participative intentions. Political issues are almost absent since the platform is mostly used to display their personal life and enhance their political persona, with most of the content displaying a clear entertaining dimension. Some differences are discussed but, in general, results reveal that Peruvian candidates use TikTok almost uniquely for politainment. Keywords Peru; politainment; political campaign; political communication; TikTok Issue This article is part of the issue “Political Communication in Times of Spectacularisation: Digital Narratives, Engagement, and Politainment” edited by Salvador Gómez‐García (University of Valladolid), Rocío Zamora (University of Murcia), and Salomé Berrocal (University of Valladolid). © 2023 by the author(s); licensee Cogitatio Press (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY). 1. Introduction 2009). So it is that, as Berrocal‐Gonzalo et al. (2022) point out, politics has become pop politics: Extreme mediati‐ Already more than 30 years ago, political theorist zation demands politicians to imitate celebrities in a pop Murray Edelman (1988) suggested that in the mass spectacle in which they become TV stars (Mazzoleni & media society ideologically motivated actors create pol‐ Sfardini, 2009). icy through the “spectacle” of dramatic public dis‐ The internet has generated a special breeding ground plays. The so‐called “political spectacle” (Edelman, 1988) for this type of dynamics. Cyberspace constitutes a fer‐ answers to two mutually influencing and interconnected tile territory for political parties, candidates, and media dynamics. On the one hand, politicians need to recon‐ to deploy communication strategies aimed at having a nect with citizenship, in particular with young people powerful impact on users (Zamora‐Medina & Rebolledo, (Collin, 2015); on the other, they are forced to keep 2021). Politainment (Berrocal‐Gonzalo et al., 2014) intro‐ up with the logic of infotainment (Mazzoleni & Sfardini, duces an era of political communication clinging to the Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 1 spectacle, where the quest for engagement requires tuted a crucial instrument for Black Lives Matter, both adapting to platforms’ affordances (Bucher & Helmond, in the US and worldwide (Eriksson & Åkerlund, 2022) 2018) and adopting entertainment strategies, such as, and become pivotal for the anti‐caste protests in India among others, gamification (Gómez‐García et al., 2022) (Subramanian, 2021) and the global #StopAsianHate or emotional appeal (Metz et al., 2020). movement during Covid‐19 pandemic (Abidin & Zeng, In this scenario, TikTok, the platform for dances and 2020; Jacques et al., 2022). frivolous trends (Abidin, 2020), as an adaptive social In the same vein, TikTok seems to be the breeding media that can be exploited in many different ways ground for climate change activism (Hautea et al., 2021) (Weimann & Masri, 2021), is emerging as an opportunity and activism related to LGBTQ+ has taken the forefront for political communication (Cervi et al., 2021). of the app (Simpson & Semaan, 2021). Whereas TikTok use is on the rise throughout Latin Recently, the app, with hashtags such as America—according to recent data TikTok is among the #FreePalestine, has been the theater of an online dis‐ three applications with the highest growth rates in this pute between Israeli and Palestinian youth, engendering area (The World Bank Group, 2022)—no study so far what has been recognized as a new form of activism, has analyzed in‐depth how this medium is used in elec‐ “playful activism” (Cervi & Marín‐Lladó, 2022), which toral campaigns. To fill this gap, the present work exam‐ has granted Palestinian resistance increased and reno‐ ines the use of TikTok in the last presidential elections vated exposure. in Peru, focusing on the political strategy and discourse The app has also been used by creators to influence of the candidates that achieved more than 10% of the result of elections: Besides turning into the locus of the popular vote: Pedro Castillo, Keiko Fujimori, Rafael youth political discussion (Medina‐Serrano et al., 2020), Lopez Aliaga, Hernando de Soto, and George Forsyth. during the last US presidential election, TikTokers, espe‐ Therefore, our work aims at answering the following cially K‐pop fans, played a key role in organizing a mass research questions: trolling false‐registration campaign for Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which resulted in many empty RQ1: Are Peruvian candidates using TikTok? seats (Bandy & Diakopoulos, 2020). Even if TikTok has an explicit ban against paid politi‐ RQ2: Do they adapt to the platform’s specific cal advertisements (Chandlee, 2019), this “Tiktokisation affordances? of global politics” (Ball, 2021) has stimulated political RQ3: What kind of content do they share? actors worldwide to join the app regarding it as a “unique opportunity to (re)connect with young people” (Cervi & RQ4: Do they use TikTok to interact with the Marín‐Lladó, 2021, p. 12). electorate? Nonetheless, while general TikTok research is boom‐ RQ5: Is the platform used for politainment? ing (Abidin et al., 2022), specific academic research about how politicians and political parties use the plat‐ 2. Theoretical Background form for promotion, communication, and especially cam‐ paigning is still extremely scarce. 2.1. TikTok and Political Communication In Europe, Bösch and Ricks (2021) and Zurovac (2022) have scrutinized TikTok usage by political parties in the TikTok has grown into one of the most popular social last German and Italian elections respectively, reaching a media platforms, reaching over one billion monthly similar conclusion: Political actors concentrate on the per‐ active users in 2021 (We Are Social & Hootsuite, 2021) formativity side of the platform rather than using it as a and becoming the highest‐grossing app in the world in tool for direct communication with the electorate. In the 2022 (Perez, 2022). Around 80% of the users are between same vein, two studies in Spain (Cervi & Marín‐Lladó, the ages of 16 and 34 (Iqbal, 2022), making TikTok Gen Z’s 2021; Cervi et al., 2021) have analyzed political parties’ favorite social medium (Abidin et al., 2022). use of TikTok finding out that very few of them have opti‐ With the explosion of its popularity, the platform mized the app’s affordances to strengthen the dialogue has somehow naturally mutated from a place for jokes, with their constituencies, while most of them use it for a pranks, and viral dance challenges to an environment form of promotion that leads to politainment. where Gen Zers rally around social issues (Zeng & Finally, an emerging stream of literature is shedding Abidin, 2021). On TikTok, content is filtered creating light on how TikTok can also be a source of political polar‐ personalized, algorithm‐led experiences (Cotter et al., ization and hate speech (Weimann & Masri, 2021), con‐ 2022): This algorithmic recommendation system poten‐ verting into the hotbed for populist right‐wing parties’ tially provides every user the possibility to go viral communication (Castro Martínez & Días Morilla, 2021). (Cervi, 2021), motivating creators to engage in politics In Latin America, studies have concentrated on pres‐ by spreading their political stances “via audiovisual acts” idential communication (Figuereo Benítez et al., 2022) (Medina‐Serrano et al., 2020, p. 264). and how it has been successfully implemented by polit‐ Accordingly, young people are increasingly using ical actors for self‐promotion during Covid‐19 (Acosta & TikTok for grassroots movements. The app has consti‐ Acosta, 2022). Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 2 The very few studies focusing on political campaigns between 12 and 17 years old and 38% of Gen Zers found that in Ecuador TikTok’s presence has helped (We Are Social & Hootsuite, 2021). new or marginal candidates get in the spotlight (Muñoz, Considering the importance of the young cohorts in 2021). In Peru, Montúfar‐Calle et al. (2022), analyzing the electoral census—one‐third of the Peruvian voting candidates’ adoption of different social networks, have population, 6,928,324, is represented by citizens under concluded that keeping up with new cultural and techno‐ the age of 30 years—and the increasing popularity of logical innovations is still an unfinished business for most TikTok, it is no surprise that politicians have adopted this Peruvian politicians, while Calderón et al. (2022), exam‐ social network to connect with the younger audience ining only Conservative candidates, have disclosed that (Montúfar‐Calle et al., 2022). they have used TikTok mostly to fuel social division and to disseminate a polarizing discourse. 2.3. The Elections of 2021 2.2. Social Media and Politics in Peru The 2021 Peruvian elections occurred in a moment of deep political instability resulting from the swearing‐in of Although data is not precise, with a steady rise in inter‐ four presidents in the previous five years (Montúfar‐Calle net penetration—a 30% increase in the last 10 years— et al., 2022): President Kuczynski resigned in 2018 due to currently, a great majority of the Peruvian population has his involvement in the Odebrecht corruption scandal and access to the internet and political engagement in social Fujimori’s pardon, and the Congress was dissolved by media significantly increased since 2016 (The World Bank president Vizcarra in 2019, with Vizcarra himself finally Group, 2022). being impeached in 2020 (Muñoz, 2021). Former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski can be In a country devasted by the Covid‐19 pandemic, considered the first political actor who implemented President Vizcarra’s impeachment worsened the already a social media strategy: In his presidential campaign, existing popular discontent towards Congress, especially he used social media to connect with young vot‐ among young people (Carrasco‐Villanueva & Sánchez‐ ers and humanize his political persona (Mäckelmann, Mejía, 2020; Dargent & Rousseau, 2021). After the disso‐ 2017); during his time in office, he used Twitter and lution of Congress and the election of a new one under Facebook to share his daily activities to strengthen his the leadership of Manuel Merino, serious social con‐ image as an active, professional, and empathic leader flict developed in the streets of Lima. The police repres‐ (Mäckelmann, 2017). Kuczynski was so successful that a sion of street mobilizations led to a national crisis that study found he became the third most popular leader ended up in the death of two university students, miss‐ in Latin America with 1.39 million followers on Twitter ing protesters, president Merino’s public resignation five (Burson‐Marsteller, 2017). days after his inauguration, and an even more unpopu‐ Social media have also had, and still have, a funda‐ lar Congress (Dargent & Rousseau, 2021). After Merino’s mental role in activism and social movements (Carrasco‐ resignation, Congress changed its leadership and elected Villanueva & Sánchez‐Mejía, 2020; Salzman, 2019) Fransico Sagasti as president, a moderate intellectual enhancing political participation through humor and that voted against Vizcarra’s impeachment and managed protest, especially among young people (Castro Pérez, to stay in office until the end of the presidential man‐ 2019; de la Garza Montemayor et al., 2021). Social date despite several impeachment threats by Congress. networking, for instance, had a central role in Lima’s Amidst this chaotic situation, President Martín Vizcarra former mayor Villarán campaign that successfully won initially presented legislation that would set the con‐ the “No” to the revocation process that aimed to ditions for a snap election in 2020, but his proposal oust her from office. Peruvian youth also used social was rejected. media to organize massive and unprecedented protests In addition to this structural crisis, Peru has been against the former President of Congress Manuel the most affected country by Covid‐19 in Latin America Merino (Carrasco‐Villanueva & Sánchez‐Mejía, 2020; (Varona & Gonzales, 2021). Because of the pandemic, the Dargent & Rousseau, 2021): #MerinoNoMeRepresenta Peruvian Ministry of Health established a security proto‐ (#MerinoDoesNotRepresentMe) and #MerinoNoEsMi col that restricted face‐to‐face electoral campaign activi‐ Presidente (#MerinoIsNotMyPresident) were the promi‐ ties: This peculiarity, together with the country’s law that nent hashtags that lead the campaign (Carrasco‐ prohibits contracting political advertising slots on radio Villanueva & Sánchez‐Mejía, 2020). and television to regulate the financing of candidates and According to a recent study (We Are Social & political parties, made social networks the core of the Hootsuite, 2021), TikTok is used by 31% of Peruvians political campaign (Montúfar‐Calle et al., 2022). with internet access. The expansion of the use of the Elections were finally held on April 11, 2021, in the platform is largely due to the confinement of people year of the celebration of the bicentennial of Peru’s inde‐ to their homes during the Covid‐19 pandemic (Calderón pendence, under the exceptional of 18 official candidates et al., 2022). TikTok is Peruvians’ third most‐used social representing both “traditional politics” and newcomers. network, behind Facebook and Instagram and before The results were surprising: In the first round, Pedro Twitter, and the preferred social network of 44% of teens Castillo, a newcomer completely unknown to the public, Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 3 received the most votes. In the second round, held at the ditional release in 2020; Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a conserva‐ beginning of June, he faced Keiko Fujimori, former pres‐ tive businessman who gained political traction due to his ident Fujimori’s daughter, winning with 50.12% of the ultraconservative rhetoric and with a Trump‐like political popular vote. communication strategy (Zárate & Budasoff, 2021), self‐ Castillo was eventually named president‐elect by the proclaiming himself as “the Peruvian Bolsonaro”; and National Jury of Elections on July 19, and inaugurated on Hernando de Soto, a famous economist and policy advi‐ July 28, after the official declaration by the National Jury sor, founder of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, of Elections was delayed following accusations of elec‐ an economic development think‐tank based in Lima. toral fraud by opposition politicians. Moreover, we have purposely added George Forsyth, who, despite not reaching 10% of votes was one of 3. Methods the most mediatized candidates of this electoral turnout (Montúfar‐Calle et al., 2022) and perfectly embodies Our analysis investigates the use of TikTok during the last celebrity pop politics (Mazzoleni & Sfardini, 2009): As a electoral campaign. To limit the scope of our research, former well‐known football player, he entered politics only candidates who have reached at least 10% of the without any experience or political affiliation, as the votes have been taken into consideration. mayor of a local district in Lima (O’Boyle, 2020), and As displayed in Figure 1, these candidates are: Pedro later signed an agreement with the National Restoration Castillo, a rural school teacher, trade unionist, and for‐ party for his presidential run. Upon his registration, the mer member of Ronda Campesina, an organization that party filed a name change and reorganized into National defended rural areas from Shining Path in the 1980s; Victory for the general election. Keiko Fujimori, contentious former president Fujimori’s All the content published by the selected candidates daughter, involved in the Odebrecht scandal, for which by the date of the data collection (April 11, 2021) has she has served in pretrial detention since 2018 with con‐ been analyzed. The unit of analysis is represented by Figure 1. Candidates and votes. Source: Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales (2021). Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 4 TikToks, defined as both the video content, the music, the “game frame” the message mainly refers to the polit‐ and, if present, the accompanying text, excluding com‐ ical game, representing politics as a battle or a war. ments. Data have been manually collected by the authors Moreover, acknowledging that any Presidential elec‐ due to the absence of any commercial API for the plat‐ tion is per se personalized, we have adopted the the‐ form. The research methodology combines quantitative oretical conceptualization of Metz et al. (2020), which and qualitative (Jaraba Molina et al., 2020) multimodal allows differentiating between “professional personaliza‐ content analysis (Serafini & Reid, 2019). The analytical tion” and “private personalization.” In the first type of variables have been built by adopting and adapting the personalization, qualities and individual activities related methodology proposed by Cervi and Marín‐Lladó (2021) to the official role are highlighted, while the second and are displayed in Table 1. capitalizes on the private persona of the candidates, First, we have looked at the candidates’ adaptation to concentrating on their personal life (families, hobbies) TikTok’s affordances, focusing on disclosing whether they and characteristics. fully understand and apply the platform’s technical pos‐ Finally, the category Entertainment, which, as previ‐ sibilities in creating their content. As per the content, we ously mentioned constitutes the main genre of the plat‐ have distinguished Political, Personal, and Entertainment form (Abidin, 2020), gathers all the TikToks that have no content. The category Political Content collects all the relation to politics at all and are shared only for their explicitly political videos. Following Dekavalla (2018), this entertaining value (dances, pranks, jokes, etc.). category has been further sub‐divided according to how From the stylistic perspective, video shots have long politics is framed: In the “issue frame,” content centers been studied due to their key role in building a narra‐ around political issues and concrete proposals, while in tive (Rao et al., 2020) and the portrayal of situations Table 1. Categories of analysis. Genre Video Duet Challenge Format Video with Video with Video with Video with Video with Video and Only video effects and effects and effects text, effects music text music text and music Source Party Media Users Other social Original networks Content Poli cal Personal Entertainment Issue frame Game frame Style Video shot Full Close up Two shot POV Wide shot Type of recording Selfie Homemade Professional Main ators Poli cian Other poli cians Celebri es Anonymous ci zens Journalists Interac on Informa on and promo on Delibera on and discussion Par cipa on and mobiliza on Source: Authors’ work based on Cervi and Marín‐Lladó (2021) Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 5 (Licoppe, 2015; Rao et al., 2020). We categorized the request for feedback (for example asking the audience to shots based on the work of Rao et al. (2020) adding give their opinions). Finally; “mobilization” is the higher more shot types that are present and popular on TikTok level of interaction: Political actors openly encourage citi‐ (Abidin, 2020). We included the close‐up, which intends zens to participate online, by sharing or creating content, to establish the viewer’s psychological identification with and/or offline, by taking part in events, offering their sup‐ the character due to the facial non‐verbal communica‐ port, etc. tion and to emphasize the identities of the characters Despite, as previously mentioned, the variables used (Rao et al., 2020); the full shot, suitable for portraying an are based on previous works (Cervi & Marín‐Lladó, 2021) event (Rao et al., 2020); the two‐shot, which shows the in order to isolate and fix analytical items requiring candidate talking to someone in particular and enhances changes or clarification, we have implemented an inter‐ the dialogue (Cutting & Candan, 2015); the long or wide coder reliability test to an initial subset of the data shot, noted as a tool to provide a zoom out perspec‐ (7%). The subsequent, and final, intercoder reliability test tive, such as collective participation (Licoppe, 2015); have met the kappa > 0.80 standard for all the variables and the point of view (POV), one of the most popular (Cohen, 1960). shots on TikTok (Abidin, 2020) which besides emphasiz‐ ing the character’s perspective (Cutting & Candan, 2015) 4. Results is known to foster the sense of authenticity (Forchtner & Kølvraa, 2017). All the analyzed candidates have adopted TikTok. In addition, recognizing that music is probably Nonetheless, only Rafael Lopez‐Aliaga, Hernando TikTok’s most distinguishable affordance (Vizcaíno‐Verdú De Soto, and George Forsyth have a relatively decent & Abidin, 2022) and that, as a cultural form, it produces number of publications, with 33, 41, and 35 posts, meanings, interpretations, and understandings not only respectively; Keiko Fujimori only has 16 and Pedro by its producers but also by the way consumers interact Castillo three, showing a later adoption of the platform. with it (Garratt, 2019), it has been added as a category Regarding the TikTok genres, most of the candi‐ of analysis. dates only post simple videos, not taking part in Music, besides functioning as a tool to capture audi‐ Tiktok’s main viral formats. Challenges, in particular, ences’ attention who otherwise would neglect the politi‐ were almost absent among all publications. Only Rafael cal message (Way, 2019), can and has been used for polit‐ Lopez‐Aliaga launches his own challenge under the hash‐ ical purposes such as propaganda (Street, 2013), but is tag #HazLoTuyoChallenge (see Figure 2), while the others also constitutive of political expression (Vizcaíno‐Verdú only applied it in less than 3% of his posts. & Abidin, 2022), as it embodies political values and Therefore candidates do not seem to capitalize on experiences and organizes political though an action TikTok’s main and most viral genres. (Garratt, 2019). In the present study, we have divided music into two subcategories: global and local, which stand for global mass‐culture music and Peruvian music, respec‐ tively. This choice of music, in the Peruvian context, especially the juxtaposition between global (mostly American) and local music, particularly indigenous popu‐ lar music (Tucker, 2019), entails a culturally and politically informed communication strategy. Furthermore, we have also identified the main char‐ acter of each post due to its importance in the narra‐ tive and political message intended to transmit to the audience, as well as the recorder, a production feature which also provides information on the political commu‐ nication style of each candidate. Finally, to disclose and measure how/if candidates stimulate forms of interaction with the audience, the interaction scale proposed by Lilleker and Vedel (2013) has been implemented. According to Lilleker and Vedel (2013), the first and less interactive level is repre‐ sented by information/promotion, in which political parties/candidates use social networks as they used old media, only to disseminate information, without promoting any type of interaction with the audi‐ ences. Deliberation or discussion is found when the party/candidate promotes a bilateral exchange through a Figure 2. #HazLoTuyoChallenge. Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 6 However, looking at the format, they tend to use and Forsyth, also capitalize on their private persona and all of TikTok’s technical affordances: 95% of the content share purely entertainment‐based content. posted by the candidates displays a wide use of the dif‐ Accordingly, Keiko Fujimori mostly uses TikTok to doc‐ ferent effects provided by the platform (music, special ument her efforts to personally tackle contentious issues effects, etc.). (see Figure 4) presenting herself as the “mother of the Regarding the sources, most of the videos are created homeland,” the heir of former President Fujimori. Many especially for TikTok. Only Lopez‐Aliaga and Forsyth use of her posts show her campaign trips with her as the extracts from traditional media, such as television inter‐ narrator of the events using the voice‐over technique. views, and share them on TikTok. On the other hand, only This trait is very important to note because it matches Lopez‐Aliaga and Forsyth post content created by other with the frequent use of wide shots, both characteristics users showing that candidates are not interacting with revealing the way she portrays herself and wants to be other content creators. represented by others: as the omniscient narrator that From a content perspective, as shown in Figure 3, controls her story and is above reality. In doing so, she there is a clear division: While in the case of Pedro also shows perspective and takes distance, and positions Castillo and Keiko Fujimori political content predomi‐ herself as an experienced leader that not only knows but nates, the rest of the candidates, especially De Soto controls what she is doing. 120% 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Casllo Keiko Lopez Aliaga De Soto Forsyth Polical Personal Entertainment Figure 3. Content of the posts. Figure 4. Fujimori’s TikTok. Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 7 The challenger candidates, on their side, try to show Figure 6). Forsyth, therefore, using the term “mismoc‐ their difference and their remoteness from the estab‐ racia,” which refers to the traditional political leaders lishment and discontent towards political institutions as part of an outdated and corrupted elite, positions (Carrasco‐Villanueva & Sánchez‐Mejía, 2020; Dargent & himself as the only possibility for renewing the politi‐ Rousseau, 2021) by focusing on their private personae. cal system. In particular, De Soto positions himself as an academic As for Castillo, the limited number of TikToks pub‐ (see Figure 5) expert whilst Lopez‐Aliaga and Forsyth as lished does not allow low to draw any conclusions. morally clean outsiders who can fight the corrupted sys‐ In the same vein, as illustrated by Figure 7, while tem that the other candidates allegedly represent. Fujimori mixes issues with “game frame,” the other candi‐ Of note is the case of the latter, who endures his dates mostly frame politics as a battle to confront “tradi‐ image of an outsider attacking “old school” politicians, by tional politics.” In this sense, our results align with those capitalizing on the entertainment and symbolical value of of Dekavalla (2018), confirming that challengers tend to his sports career through the diffuse display of meaning‐ foster the representation of politics as a battlefield to ful soccer symbolism, such as soccer teams t‐shirts (see strengthen their outsider position. Figure 5. De Soto’s TikTok. Figure 6. George Forsyth’s TikTok. Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 8 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% Cas llo Keiko Lopez Aliaga De Soto Forsyth Issue frame Game frame Figure 7. Game and issue frames. Professional recording is predominant in most can‐ Fujimori, on the other hand, shows clearly differenti‐ didates. In the case of Keiko Fujimori, the vast major‐ ated uses of global and local music. Instrumental global ity of her videos were professionally recorded (93.75%), music is played as the background of videos in which she which is very symptomatic of her political communica‐ narrates her campaign trips, while vocal global music is tion style, suggesting a planned, controlled and tradi‐ used in her behind‐the‐scenes videos, where she shows tional strategy. Although the professional component glimpses of her personal life such as her daily routine at prevails among the rest of the candidates, Forsyth, home, her preparations for public appearances (debates, Lopez‐Aliaga, and De Soto exhibited homemade videos interviews, election day, etc.). Playing and dancing to in moderate but meaningful proportions with 28.57%, local music is capitalized as a tool to connect with certain 24.24%, and 21.95%, respectively. These videos suggest sectors of voters. the candidates’ intentions to appear authentic and relat‐ Similarly, Castillo’s musical selection seems to answer able, different from the traditional politicians (Forchtner to a clear strategy: Local music is used to advise and & Kølvraa, 2017). Finally, the use of self‐recorded videos talk about local policy issues, whilst its global counter‐ was very poor among all candidates (<15%). part is the background for tackling wider topics, such Most of the candidates appear as the main character as immigration. in their posts (Fujimori: 93.75%; Lopez Aliaga: 81.82%; The case Lopez‐Aliaga appears particularly interest‐ De Soto: 80.49%; Forsyth: 82.86%), which strongly ing since he is the only candidate with a sort of official corroborates the predominance of personalist politics. soundtrack: the Looney Toons music. As previously men‐ Nevertheless, Castillo is completely absent in his publica‐ tioned, he constructed his political persona somehow tions as a character: His posts’ characters are anonymous imitating Trump and sharing an ultra‐conservative pop‐ people, other politicians, and his pet. ulist discourse that created notable discontent, mainly As for the use of the camera, Fujimori is the candidate among young people. that applies the widest range of camera shots, although a Because of that, critics online started—targeting his great majority are wide shots (62.50%), showing her sur‐ physical appearance—calling him by the nickname Porky rounded by crowds. The full shot and the close‐up are (Looney Toons’ piglet character). The candidate maxi‐ the most used by all the other candidates. mized social media attention economy by capitalizing on POV, on the other side, despite being one of the most this nickname through humor by including Looney Toons popular affordance of TikTok, is the less‐used camera music and cartoons‐related humor in his posts, portray‐ shot: It is not present in Castillo, De Soto, and Fujimori’s ing himself as cute, harmless, relatable, and funny. content and only represents 17.14% and 12% in the cases Finally, Forsyth uses popular music (both global of Forsyth and Lopez‐Aliaga, respectively. and local) to appear “cool” and fashionable, exploiting As previously mentioned, music plays an important his archetypical physical appearance—a young, hand‐ role in TikTok and an even more important role in some, sports star—to display himself as a sort of soap Peruvian culture (Tucker, 2019). De Soto, an internation‐ opera “prince charming.” Figure 8, for instance, shows ally known intellectual, uses music to connect with young the candidate visiting a popular food market, while voters. Coherently he mostly uses global music, in partic‐ attacked by two young fans who wanted to hug him. ular reggaeton, not only adding it to his videos but also The story is metaphorically accompanied by the song dancing to it. In that sense, music does not only involve “Hero” by CNCO. the entertaining dimension, but it also embodies a vehi‐ Finally, looking at interaction, a shattering majority cle for the candidate to express and laugh at himself, of the posted content only vehicles information and pro‐ therefore humanizing himself. This allows for encoding motion, that is to say, an old media style of unilateral a powerful bridging message to his target audience. communication (see Figure 9). Almost all the can‐ Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 9 Figure 8. George Forsyth’s TikTok. didates only use TikTok uniquely as a platform for engagement rather than purely political participation. auto‐promotion: No content asking for people’s opin‐ This shows that Peruvian politicians use TikTok neither ions nor any form of deliberation has been retrieved. as a tool to foster dialogue nor participation, but rather Participation, although residual in most candidates (the they use it as a form of digital showcase that corrob‐ case of Castillo cannot be considered representative orates the previously noted top‐down communication since he only posted three times) is sensibly higher approach in Latin America, where politicians use social in newcomers. media to reach out to the public without having to deal However, it is important to stress that none of them with questioning and to attack their critics (Waisbord & ask for a real‐life form of participation, rather they focus Amado, 2017). on a “share this” call for action, mostly geared towards 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Pedro Cas llo Keiko Fujimori Rafael Hernando George Forsyth Lopez-Aliaga De Soto Informa on and promo on Delibera on Par cipa on Figure 9. Information/promotion, deliberation, and participation. Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 10 5. Conclusions Gonzalo et al.’s (2021), which analyzed new actors (native and peripheral) and their use of new strategies, we Previous studies (Eriksson & Åkerlund, 2022; Medina‐ can expect that within this new platform, originally Serrano et al., 2020) have disclosed that the emer‐ meant for entertainment (Abidin, 2020), politainment gence of TikTok is transforming political discussion will become prominent. and participation. In the same vein, recognizing that TikTok might have Within this context, our work, using the case of Peru, been “the first platform to remix and combine previ‐ intends to contribute to the emerging stream of litera‐ ously disparate affordances, but it will not be the last” ture focusing on how TikTok can be exploited for political (Guinaudeau et al., 2020, p. 22), we can expect a general communication purposes by political actors. increase of politainment content. Our results reveal that in the Peruvian case, despite This trend should be validated by further research, all the analyzed candidates having joined TikTok, they tracking the evolution of TikTok’s usage by political actors. do not seem to have fully exploited the platform’s wide In particular, future investigations should recur to inter‐ affordances, since, as shown, hardly ever they used national comparative research to confirm if politainment challenges or other TikTok trendy genres to engage is becoming a global trend or if political actors’ behaviour their audience. is still dependent on the type of political and media sys‐ The same can be said about the interaction possi‐ tems they operate in (Hallin & Mancini, 2012). bilities that the platform offers: Most of the candidates Most importantly, admitting the existence of an elec‐ tend to use it as a unilateral tool for promotion, dis‐ tive affinity (Gerbaudo, 2018) between populism and playing a top‐down communication style with almost no social media, it is seminal for future studies to exam‐ deliberative nor participative intentions. In this sense, ine whether TikTok’s playful affordances and attention our findings confirm what stated by Montúfar‐Calle et al. economy, which foster politainment, can serve as a (2022): Keeping up with new cultural and technological loudspeaker, if not as a fertile “discursive opportunity” innovations seems to be unfinished business for most (Koopmans & Muis, 2009), for populist movements in Peruvian politicians. Latin America—where populism is endemic (de la Torre, From a content perspective, however, a clear differ‐ 2017)—and worldwide. ence between “old school” politicians and newcomers On another level, our research contributes to the and/or challengers can be noted. existing knowledge about the communicative opportuni‐ Interestingly, Castillo, although unknown and actu‐ ties that TikTok can offer to political actors by positively ally embodying the only real challenge to the status testing the validity of the methodological framework pro‐ quo, seems to use TikTok in a very similar way to Keiko posed by Cervi and Marín‐Lladó (2021). Fujimori: They mostly use the platform as any other This affordance‐based approach allows overcoming social media, to tackle political issues. Right‐wing candi‐ the complexity of investigating a platform that combines dates Lopez Aliaga and De Soto together with the new‐ all the affordances of the other social networks in one comer Forsyth, on their side, as challengers prefer the app (Abidin, 2020, p. 84), providing a tool that grants “game frame,” representing politics as a battle, offering researchers the possibility to work with both quantita‐ a dichotomous vision of the world where they are repre‐ tive and qualitative variables, without losing the focus on sented as heroes and traditional politicians as villains. the broader TikTok’s cultural environment. These aspects resonate with what previous studies This methodology, nonetheless, suffers from the have encountered in other countries—for instance, in inherent limitation of being supply‐side‐centered. Ecuador (Muñoz, 2021)—suggesting that TikTok can be Specifically, not taking into consideration the users’ feed‐ an opportunity for marginal/challenger or emerging can‐ back, it does not permit the evaluation of the effects of didates to gain a place in the spotlight. political communication. In addition, especially candidate Lopez‐Aliaga, who In order to comprehensively assess both the effi‐ humorously portrays himself like a cartoon character ciency and the efficacy of politicians’ communication on with the use of the famous Looney Toons soundtrack, TikTok, further academic analysis on the users’ side is together with Forsyth, able to take advantage of his pre‐ needed. Future works should explore not only comments existing popularity and his physical appearance, seems to but any type of interaction between political actors and have perfectly understood that the best way to maximize their audience, deeping, in particular, on whether new TikTok’s viralizing power is to “incorporate styles, narra‐ affordances are able to engender a new form of political tives…of the world of spectacle and entertainment into dialogue or (just) constitute an alternative promotional their communicative repertoire” (Cervi & Marín‐Lladó, tool for political actors. 2021, p. 12). In other words, it appears that politain‐ ment content, capitalizing on the platform’s entertain‐ Acknowledgments ment dimension, is the preferred type of content by can‐ didates in their quest for visibility. The authors would like to thank this thematic issue’s edi‐ Altogether these conclusions are applicable beyond tors and the anonymous reviewers for their support. Peru. 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El País. https://elpais.com/ The face and the vote: Evidence of political position‐ internacional/2021‐04‐07/la‐invencion‐de‐un‐ ing on TikTok between performance and connected candidato‐de‐ultraderecha.html reflexivity]. Comunicazione Politica, 23(3), 485–488. Zeng, J., & Abidin, C. (2021). “#OkBoomer, time to meet https://doi.org/10.3270/105438 About the Authors Laura Cervi is a Serra Húnter associate professor of the Department of Journalism and Communica‐ tion Sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Pavia (Italy) and Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is also a member of the research group Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación, a recognized and consolidated research group at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Her main research interest is political communi‐ cation and its relation with new technologies, with a focus on TikTok. She is a member of the TikTok Cultures Research Network. Santiago Tejedor is professor and director of the Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He holds a PhD in journalism and communica‐ tion sciences from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a PhD in project engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia. He is currently director and principal investigator of the research group Gabinete de Comunicación y Educación, a recognized and consolidated research group. His lines of research focus in particular on media literacy, cyberjournalism, media convergence, and new trans‐ media narratives. Fernando García Blesa teaches introductory courses in politics, psychology, and ethics in the Department of General Studies at the University of Lima. He also holds a master’s degree in politi‐ cal communication with a focus on political discourse from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a focus on interdisciplinary approaches on authority. His latest work is about political discourse in social media. Media and Communication, 2023, Volume 11, Issue 2, Pages X–X 15