Acknowledgements

I thank all my interview partners Toni, Jennifer and Clara for taking the time to share their work and knowledge. To quote Armin Wolf „I learned the most about my job when I was interviewed myself.“ I hope this was the case for you, too.

Abstract

TikTok entered the social media market with a new mechanic of distributing content in short videos endlessly looped and cycled through by swiping vertically. With its popularity of the platform in younger audiences, TikTok also became one of their main platforms for news consumption thus an interesting platform for news agencies. This study analyses the TikTok presences and published video contents of daily newspapers in Austria. Three in-depth semi-structured interviews have been conducted with Austrian newspapers DER STANDARD, Kronen Zeitung and Kurier providing insights in the medium’s intentions, business models and journalistic challenges, respectively. The findings suggest that TikTok publishing is crucial for daily newspapers to build up a young audience and compete in market reach with different strategies complying to the medium’s guidelines.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Literature Review
History of short video platforms
Consumption of digital news in Austria
Viral journalism
Expectation of consumers
Methodology
Results
DER STANDARD
Kronen Zeitung
Kurier
Discussion
Conclusion
Bibliography
Primary Sources

Introduction

New developments in mass media platforms have had a massive impact on the news industry. With the Internet the extinction of print media had been foreshadowed but has not yet happened. Social media is often depicted as a threat for democracy with an increasing amount of political propaganda and fake news. (Aral, 2020) The journalistic duty of providing high-quality news and critical analyses for the public is more important than ever.

With the social media platform TikTok a new format of content distribution became popular. Due to its quick success, other platforms adopted its content model. Until today (as of May 2023), most of the biggest social media platforms include their own section for short videos in portrait format. The video uploads in this section often are time restricted and offer creation with a set of filters and music.

In Austria, journalistic content on TikTok got very popular when Zeit im Bild, the news journal provided by the public broadcast service ORF, made its announcement to start publishing on the platform in October 2021. (ORF, 2021) Over 400,000 people followed their channel until May 2023, which makes it the most prominent channel of Austrian news agencies. With their early success, more newspapers decided to publish content on TikTok throughout 2022, also.

With its reach Zeit im Bild (ZIB) is the main competitor for privately owned newspapers. Besides, there are great examples of successful private journalistic publishing companies such as hashtag.jetzt founded by journalist Stefan Apfl. (Salzburger
Nachrichten, 2022) Therefore, newspapers are challenged to build up their market share on this platform. This study aims to analyse how Austrian newspapers present news on the short video platform TikTok and give insights on their motivations, business models and challenges when producing journalistic content in this format.

Literature Review

TikTok became internationally available in 2017. Since then, it has been one of the most rapidly growing social media applications (apps). The app allows users to create or upload video content. (Schellewald, 2021) For consumers it is possible to interact and share the videos. At first, TikTok allowed only short videos of less than 15 seconds but increased that limit constantly. (Malik, 2022) Today, it is possible to upload videos up to 10 minutes and record directly in the app for up to 3 minutes. Still, TikTok is mainly known and used for distributing and consuming short portrait video snippets which are colloquially called TikToks because of the platform’s popularity.

History of short video platforms

Short videos on TikTok are consumed in an infinite loop. Users cycle through them by swiping vertically on their smartphone. The combination of this unique usability and short video snippets led to the quick success of TikTok. Established social media platforms already offered to create and upload short videos, hence not in an infinite loop. Snapchat offered users to share pictures or videos in private communication or in Stories visible for 24 hours. This concept was then adopted by Instagram, Facebook and others. After TikTok released its concept, a similar adoption happened, and other social media platforms offered the same mechanic.

From 2020 to 2022, Instagram and Facebook, both owned by Meta, developed the Reel section, (Instagram 2020, Meta 2022) YouTube released YouTube Shorts in 2020 as well. (Sherman, 2021) The mechanic for displaying short videos on all platforms is similar to TikTok as well as the forms of user interactions. In contrast to TikTok the other platforms show these portrait videos in between the regular feed of postings. The utilisation of short videos in specific streams on all those platforms made it possible to allow cross-posting on all of them. Thus, TikTok creators can share their videos on other social media platforms and vice versa by connecting their accounts.

In Austria, the popularity of TikTok for citizens within the age of 11 to 17 is being analysed annually by the Jugend-Internet-Monitor statistic of saferinternet.at. TikTok is prominently displayed for the first time in this report in 2020 when the market share reached 42%. (Saferinternet.at, 2023) Even though the market share was already measured with 26% in 2017, it was not present prominently in reports before 2020. In 2023 TikTok is the fifth most used social media platform in this age group in Austria with 68% of market share.

Consumption of digital news in Austria

The latest Digital News Report by Reuters (2023) has shown that the Austrian population finds 76% of their news online. Compared to the total amount, 47% of news is consumed on social media alone. While online news consumption stagnated over the past years, the consumption of news in print media has dropped from 71% to only 42% since 2015. In the same timeframe the consumption of news on smartphones has increased from 41% to 71%.

As the 2022 report shows, news content is shared by sending content to other people by 30% of the Austrian consumers. The biggest social media platforms for sharing news are Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram. TikTok is not represented in the first six places of platforms for sharing news in Austria. Results across Europe show that TikTok is only used for news consumption by 5% of Europeans compared to 40% on Facebook, respectively. But looking specifically at consumers from the age of 18 to 24, news content is intentionally watched on TikTok by 15% worldwide. These findings indicate that in a younger age group, a small but noticeable proportion of Austrians is using TikTok as a news platform.

The algorithms of social media platforms are perceived to distribute content analysing our engagement and the interactions of people we follow. (Aral, 2020) The benefit of using TikTok for news, lies in the used algorithm of distributing video content in an endless stream. (Schellewald, 2021) With its For You page TikTok users will receive content from accounts they do not necessarily follow but are recognized by the platform as interesting to the user. Concluding, TikTok allows to reach the majority of the younger target group with news content.

Viral journalism

On short video platforms the most successful videos measured by views and interactions are called viral videos. Viral content is defined by spreading swiftly, by reaching a large audience by being presented to many users or shared by a large number of users. When presenting news content on social media, news agencies are competing with viral content creators to gain more views and followers. Hence, viral journalism became a form of maximising consumers‘ attention. (Denisova, 2022) Tyler Cowen, economist and book author, says “When access [to information] is easy, we tend to favour the short, the sweet and the bitty.” (Carr, 2013) These needed characteristics can be seen as fundamental requirements for viral journalism.

Having produced a viral news content does not necessarily mean it went viral for its high-quality information. A study from 2019 found that a fifth of UK citizens who share news on social media, do so to annoy others rather than to provide them with information. (Chadwick & Vaccari, 2019) Moreover, social media has become a platform to share current events such as terroristic attacks very rapidly. A strong emotional bond to this kind of information might lead to an imprudent sharing to inform others, despite the information not yet being proven to be correct.

An emotional connection to the consumed content has a big impact on its potential virality. If content produces awe, anxiety and anger people more likely click and share it. (Denisova, 2022) News articles focussing on emotional storytelling in topics of entertainment, celebrity and lifestyle are referred to as soft news. On the contrary, factual and timely articles are called hard news. Hard news is often found in politics, science and economics. (Kalsnes & Larsson, 2018)

Expectation of consumers

The expected characteristics of content provided on social media depend on different factors including the platforms characteristics. As TikTok is widely used by younger audiences, typical content generally is expected to match their needs. Videos from the same creators might differ based on the platform used for publishing, even though the video format and mechanic to consume remains the same. Moreover, TikTok was merely used by creators sharing personal videos, as in the beginning lip-syncing and dancing videos trended on the platform. In comparison to its competitors owned by Meta, TikTok creates a deeper connection with creators. (Sweney, 2022) Thus, a more personal presentation of information is expected by TikTok users.

Due to the target group orientation, publishers might be biased when producing content for a specific platform. Kassy Cho, founder of the Instagram-first media outlet Almost, mentioned in an interview that TikTok might be seen as a mostly entertaining platform for young people. However, he notes that young people are very passionate about hard news topics. (Cummins, 2022) Cho’s argument matches the findings from the Reuters Digital News Report.

News content on TikTok is in a place where consumers are presented with incidental news that are not actively searched for yet consumed. This is because videos on TikTok are provided to users by the platform’s algorithm and due to its mechanics users can not actively select the next video to watch in the regular video feed. (Vázquez-Herrero et al, 2020) Consequently, creators might focus on making the first seconds of the video very attention grabbing. Journalists need to take care to avoid this attention by a clickbait manner as misleading information could disappoint the consumers after watching. (Titze, 2022) The production of an engaging and likely to share video while remaining professional and qualitative has its challenges.

A study from Shi et al. (2023) analysed the factors that a video must fulfil for users to share it. The study also took marketing information into account. The findings indicate that a high quality of content and platform leads to an increased willingness to share the content. The quality of platforms is determined by performance, usability and design. Next to video quality, there are credibility criteria for the journalistic quality of content. Source credibility correlates with visual attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness. Media and message credibility are associated with factors such as accuracy as well as fair and objective presentation. These factors are noticed by consumers as shown in study results that analysed audience perceptions for online news. (Koliska et al. 2021)

Methodology

The aim of this study is to analyse how major Austrian newspapers provide their content on TikTok. For this purpose, three in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with professional journalists accountable for the newspaper’s TikTok appearance. DER STANDARD, Kronen Zeitung and Kurier were selected to provide a wide insight into Austria’s media landscape.

All three newspapers are privately owned. Kronen Zeitung is a tabloid newspaper and rather focuses on soft news. DER STANDARD and Kurier are both serious newspapers. DER STANDARD is perceived to be more liberal and left aligned (Eurotopics, 2020) and in 2022 had the highest market reach in the group of academics compared to other daily newspapers. (Media-Analyse, 2023) The political alignment is also reflected by a higher rate of advertisements of the social parties Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs (SPÖ) and Die Grünen (Dossier, 2017).

On the contrary, Kurier is perceived as liberal (Eurotopics, 2020) but more politically centred, reflecting a more balanced audience in terms of highest education (Media-Analyse, 2023) and political advertisement investments of SPÖ, the people’s party Österreichische Volkspartei (ÖVP) and the right aligned Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ). Moreover, Kurier is mentioned, yet not proven, with a potential influence of ÖVP when it comes to position allocation and reporting. (Salzburger
Nachrichten, 2021)

In the interviews the intentions of the newspapers should be discussed. All media were present on social media before TikTok was available in Austria. Measurements of success on TikTok channels also play a role in the medium’s interest in the platform. Further, the decisions on how to present content on the short video platform should be addressed to also include the challenges of providing journalistic content on the platform. Lastly, a forecast on future investments and thoughts on a potential prohibition of TikTok should be discussed, as the European Commission threatened TikTok with a ban if it does not comply with its regulations. (ORF, 2023)

Results

DER STANDARD

In 2022 DER STANDARD had the third highest weekly market share in online news in Austria with 17% compared to 34% of ORF in first position. (Reuters, 2023) With more than 50,000 printed newspapers daily, DER STANDARD is one of the biggest daily papers in Austria. In print DER STANDARD had the fourth highest market share of 6.8% in 2022. Within the age of 14 to 19 year olds DER STANDARD has the highest share of all daily papers. (Media-Analyse, 2023) The brand DER STANDARD is the second most trusted medium behind ORF. (Reuters, 2023) According to their philosophy DER STANDARD is an independent liberal medium which allocates great importance to thorough and comprehensive news reporting. (DER STANDARD, no date)

DER STANDARD can be found on TikTok with the handle @derstandard. The official name of the account which is shown on videos is DER STANDARD Qualitätsnews which translates to quality news. Their channel description contains “Austrians biggest quality newspaper” and the link to the official webpage of DER STANDARD. Content for TikTok is produced next to other social media content on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by a dedicated social media team of 3 persons. The aim of their TikTok presence is to reach a young audience and promote the brand as Antonia Titze explained in the interview.

Titze is the main presenter of content on the TikTok channel of DER STANDARD. DER STANDARD was one of the first newspapers in Austria to publish content on TikTok and now has more than 50,000 followers and two million likes in total. Titze joined DER STANDARD’s video team as an intern in 2020 and a year later took responsibility for creating TikToks. At first DER STANDARD claimed to share news and videos that give insights behind the scenes of news production. The videos about actual news are hereby very dominant when analysing published videos. There is no strong directive from DER STANDARD management on what kind of content is published on TikTok. Titze mentions some news are required to be published, because of greater relevance, but she is mostly self-directed in researching and producing.

DER STANDARD shares most of its news on TikTok with a moderating style of Titze mixed with reports with shot footage and an explanatory voice over. As considered fitting for the platform it was decided for Titze to become the face of DER STANDARD on TikTok. Titze mentions The Guardian Australia and Matilda Boseley as main influence on the style of presenting her content. Boseley published her first video on the official channel of The Guardian Australia on February 10th, 2021 (Titze, 2022) and produced a high performing video with over 3.5 million views in August 2021. (B&T Magazine, 2021)

On the channel page of DER STANDARD the first three videos are fixed. The videos change from time to time but mostly show the current high performing videos measured by the number of views. In addition, there is one fixed video in cooperation with Viennese TikToker Lionel known by the handle @wurstaufschnitt who is known for making comedy videos. In the fixed video which was published in July 2021 Lionel is making fun of reading DER STANDARD newspaper. Titze claims that its TikTok audience hardly knows that DER STANDARD is an actual newspaper, which they concluded after visiting schools asking young students from where they know DER STANDARD. Because of this, they also changed their official name from “DER STANDARD” to include “quality news”. The fixed video might explain DER STANDARD’s origins for new followers.

To gain more market share DER STANDARD is also investing budget in promoting their content on TikTok via advertisements on the platform, especially after competing newspapers started publishing content on TikTok. Besides, DER STANDARD produces content together with other content creators such as Lionel. However, there is no compensation for the content partners except the shared reach. DER STANDARD does not monetize their published content by paid cooperations. As monetisation is not in focus, there is no need for DER STANDARD to measure total views except for their own marketing reasons. Successful videos are defined by a broad social discourse in the comment section of a published video.

Kronen Zeitung

The Kronen Zeitung is the daily newspaper with the highest circulation of more than 600,000 copies in Austria. Their market share of daily newspapers was the highest with 22.2% in 2022 (Media-Analyse, 2023), the weekly online and offline share including TV and radio was second highest in the Reuters Digital News Report. Kronen Zeitung is a tabloid newspaper and the third most distrusted brand in Austrian news. (Reuters 2023)

Kronen Zeitung started publishing on TikTok in March 2022. (Kronen Zeitung, 2022) Their account name is @krone.at named after their online platform, the official name however is Kronen Zeitung. The TikTok account of Kronen Zeitung has almost 100,000 followers. Kronen Zeitung has a dedicated team of 3 persons for TikTok who also work as regular editors for Kronen Zeitung. News are presented on TikTok with two different moderators. One of them is Jennifer Kappelari. Similar to DER STANDARD, Kronen Zeitung also presents news with their TikTok moderators in picture. Kapellari mentions authenticity on the platform as the main reason.

Kapellari joined Kronen Zeitung in February 2022 and started TikTok publishing right from the beginning. The reason for starting TikTok is to keep prestige as the biggest daily print medium on new social media platforms and strengthen their own brand especially for younger people. Kronen Zeitung has its biggest market share in Austrians above the age of 70 and its least within the age of 14 to 19. This discrepancy motivated Kronen Zeitung to join TikTok as Kapellari explained. Still, within the younger age group Kronen Zeitung has the second highest market share in daily print papers behind DER STANDARD. (Media-Analyse, 2023)

In comparison to DER STANDARD Kronen Zeitung monetises their reach by offering cooperations for advertising. Kapellari mentions the Austrian Economics Chamber who cooperated with Kronen Zeitung to promote apprenticeships as an example. This indicates that a high number of views and followers is essential for measuring success at Kronen Zeitung which Kapellari confirms. In addition to paid advertisements Kronen Zeitung tried to increase their reach with lotteries announced by a TikTok video. To participate TikTok users need to write a comment and tag another TikTok user within the message.

Kronen Zeitung management shifted focus to analyse which kind of content tends to go viral. Therefore, videos aim for entertainment or to start a discourse. Content is selected by the TikTok editorial staff and not mainly by Kapellari herself. For the news production the TikTok staff usually profits from being a big company and being able to use video footage and news material from other journalists.

Kurier

Measured by the online market share of 11%, Kurier is behind Kronen Zeitung and DER STANDARD. (Reuters, 2023) Whereas, with around 120,000 daily printed issues Kurier doubles the amount of DER STANDARD. (ÖAK, 2023) In total the reach of Kurier with 5.6% is slightly lower than the one of DER STANDARD. The difference in online and print reach likely results from the distribution of audience age. Most of Kurier print readers are older than 70 and the age group 14 to 19 is the smallest audience for Kurier. Still, compared to other daily papers, Kurier is the sixth biggest in total reach. (Media-Analyse, 2023)

Like Kronen Zeitung, Kurier started publishing on TikTok in March 2022. Kurier is publishing under their name with the official account name @kurier.at hinting to their website. In their description they mention they are an Austrian daily paper and that “Your mother reads us on paper” which indicates that Kurier is aware of their main audience and pointedly communicates that to the young audience on TikTok.

In contrast to the other two newspapers, Kurier has a more varied set of video moderators with their social media team of three as main presenters and additional editors of different departments. The first three videos are fixed on their channel and each of them is showing the most viewed video of the three main presenters. In most videos, Clara Sautner is seen, who is one of the three main presenters and participated in this interview.

Sautner started an internship at Kurier in April 2022 and was employed in the following October. During her internship she already participated in TikTok videos. In March 2023, Sautner started an own category called Claras weird news on Kurier’s TikTok channel. Different to other videos, these are specifically posted on TikTok only and are visually and thematically targeted to the younger audience with a wackier style, as Sautner explains. In this category Sautner presents funny and seemingly sensational news, similar to reports in tabloid newspapers which focus more on entertainment value rather than relevant information for daily life. One example is a story about a three year old Viennese child who travelled alone in a subway to get fast food.

The main goal of Kurier’s publishing is brand awareness for the younger age group. The success of the social media team is measured by views and followers. The team responsible for the videos is mostly self-managed when it comes to picking stories and particularly receives requests from the main editorship. Research is often based on existing articles of Kurier’s journalists. Kurier did not yet monetize their contents but is currently discussing partnerships with clothing brands to equip the presenters for the videos according to Sautner. Kurier also invested in paid advertisements of their content on TikTok.

Discussion

The TikTok presences of all three newspapers are similar in most aspects. A social media team of 3 people is taking care of producing short videos next to general tasks. In the videos the journalists mainly present their news with a personalised appearance targeted to the young audience on TikTok.

All interviewed journalists mentioned that the distribution and perception of their videos is not clear to them given the constantly changing algorithm of the platform. Videos that are expected to perform often under-perform and vice versa. Kapellari mentions a directed focus on topics that are greatly accepted by their audience as an outcome of their analytics. Videos that focus on topics of journalistic relevance to Austrian citizens such as politics have been observed to underperform hence neglected. For Kapellari from Kronen Zeitung, producing sensational stories is considered a benefit for the TikTok presence of the tabloid newspaper. The interviewed content creators of the bigger newspaper companies Kronen Zeitung and Kurier greatly profit from the already published stories of the print and online journalists.

Sautner mentions that the time constraint for short videos is the biggest struggle for her in the video creation. This also leads to the challenge of avoiding polarisation when publishing news content in this format. Both result in a longer postproduction process for her. Titze, on the contrary, who has the most experience of TikTok publishing compared to Kapellari and Sautner does not mention the time constraint as a problem. If the topic is very broad, Titze would focus on a single aspect that can be explained in a shorter time frame, as the general explanation of complex topics is not the main aspect of DER STANDARD’s TikTok channel.

In case of mistakes in the published videos they are usually deleted and reposted if needed. Correction by following videos is out of the question due to the distribution algorithm. In case of a bigger error that would have been perceived by a larger audience, Titze would not rule out a following video to explain the causalities. Kapellari mentioned a case in which she received negative feedback in the video’s comments and consequently deleted the published video.

The willingness to pay for news consumption continued to decrease lately. (Reuters, 2023) If news agencies distribute content over social media, the content is free of charge. The intention of TikTok publishing for all mentioned newspapers is mainly brand awareness and the journalistic integrity of providing news. Except the mentioned content partnerships by Kronen Zeitung there is no monetization of the published content. Providing news on TikTok therefore can be considered as an investment by the newspapers.

Given their main competitor ORF and its ZIB TikTok channel, newspapers are tempted to publish on TikTok to remain competitive in market share in younger audiences. As ORF is publicly financed, the journalistic relevance and quality of their content is mandatory and defined by law. (Raab & Brunner, 2023) Nonetheless, their mission provides freedom in content flexibility of privately owned newspapers. Titze for example is relieved that ZIB is taking the responsibility to publish content for complex matters of great relevance to Austrian citizens. Therefore, Titze can focus on other stories and formats matching the niche target group of DER STANDARD.

DER STANDARD, Kronen Zeitung and Kurier did not yet think about the topic of TikTok getting banned as an app. A potential switch to another platform is considered possible, short video content will not be stopped if TikTok is getting shut down. All three already cross post some of their TikToks on other social media platforms. Kurier is the only one which is publishing them on YouTube Shorts in contrast to DER STANDARD and Kronen Zeitung. DER STANDARD stopped publishing YouTube Shorts in 2022. Kronen Zeitung is present on YouTube with their own channel krone.tv which produces their own videos as YouTube Shorts.

Conclusion

DER STANDARD, Kronen Zeitung and Kurier all invest to publish news content on TikTok to promote their brands. All three newspapers are willing to further invest in their TikTok content creation teams according to the interviewed content creators. DER STANDARD also mentions their journalistic duty to publish quality news on the platform. Kurier seems to try to balance sensational stories and quality news to gain more reach to define their success. Kronen Zeitung as a tabloid newspaper focuses more on sensational stories and soft news in order to sell cooperations and monetise their content.

The latest update on the Austrian law of financial promotion of quality print and online mediums did neither mention social media nor TikTok. (Raab, 2022) Thus, a potential grant for news agencies to produce news content on TikTok is not in sight. Except the publicly financed ZIB, newspapers need to invest in their content production to contribute to the offered journalistic content on short video platforms.

As an example, the weekly newspaper Falter, which is known for critical and investigative journalism, is not publishing on TikTok yet. Their aim is to contact younger audiences in schools rather than on TikTok, as editor-in-chief Florian Klenk (2023) posted on Twitter. In the end, Falter is a small medium with less financial opportunities and therefore would greatly benefit from a grant to provide their content on social media platforms used by most young people for free.

Concluding, a financial promotion for quality media would be desirable for the public. If quality media run out of financial options, they cannot contribute anymore to news published on TikTok. Potentially only sensational information from tabloid newspapers might remain on these platforms. Armin Wolf (2022), news anchor and ZIB editor-in-chief, stresses the importance for journalists and media to “Flood the zone with journalism”. Upon personal request Wolf confirms that the ORF with its public service is mainly responsible to provide serious information on social media to fight public relation interests of other institutional participants on social media, fake news or fraud.

With the latest draft of the law regulating the ORF, ORF.at as its public online service got restricted in text articles while being able to produce 70% of content as videos. (Raab & Brunner, 2023) The Austrian government in the form of Susanne Raab as current media minister thus acknowledged video formats as the main form of information in the future. This kind of acknowledgement should follow for privately owned quality media to continue to be able to provide journalistic content on short video platforms such as TikTok.

Further studies should investigate whether content publishing on TikTok for a younger audience results in more newspaper readers when this audience matures. Furthermore, future studies could highlight the effects of an increased news perception on TikTok on journalistic awareness and electoral behaviour of the reached audience.

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Primary Sources

Tiktok channel of Kronen Zeitung, https://www.tiktok.com/@krone.at (Accessed in April and May 2023)

TikTok channel of Kurier, https://www.tiktok.com/@kurier.at (Accessed in April and May 2023)

TikTok channel of DerStandard, https://www.tiktok.com/@derstandard (Accessed in April and May 2023)