(Re)coding TikTok: The Memetic Interactivity Codebook for content analysis

Abstract

TikTok is one of the fastest-growing short-video platforms in the world. Its unique format and interaction possibilities make it a prime space to understand contemporary creators, their practices and strategies. This social medium has been described as structurally memetic, promoting imitation and interaction through its affordances and configurations. The range of creation possibilities enables TikTokers to curate, re-signify and generate content of interest. Traditional research methods such as content analyses require adaptations to effectively decode the features of complex social media such as TikTok. In response to this, we introduce the Memetic Interactivity Codebook (MIC), which is a flexible method that facilitates the analysis of the diverse connections, grammars and affordances of the platform. This paper fills the gap in the consideration of social media content as static objects to acknowledge their evolving nature by offering additional analytical dimensions that adapt to TikTok.

Keywords

• content analysis
• memesis
• interactivity
• social media
• codebook
• method