common challenges
that newspapers encounter when they join TikTok
temporality
December 4th
2020
In TikTok, the temporality of the content is displayed differently in relation to other platforms, and should be a point of attention for journalists. Especially in these two aspects:
The date of publication of the videos does not appear on the For You Page, the main feed of the application (it only appears on each user's page);
Due to the recommendations algorithm, content can appear on a user's For You Page months after it has been published.
why is this a problem
Time is one of the pillars of any news story. An article can become false if it is removed from the context and the time it was published. And the faster a newspaper is able to convey a recent event to readers, the greater the news value involved.
But this speed of transmission, in the context of TikTok, is subject to the algorithm of each person, who can show the post to the user in the minute of its publication or weeks after that.
Thus, if the newspaper produces videos about very specific events, that content may no longer make sense when it appears on the For You Page of some users. More than that: as the posting date does not appear in this feed, there may be a misinterpretation of the facts reported, with readers thinking that they are more current / recent than they actually are.
some guidelines
One way to deal with the issue of temporality in TikTok is to invest in "evergreen" content ("always green", in English) - those that remain relevant over time, since they are timeless.
But that is not the only way. There is a possibility to address current issues and still not produce a video that will quickly become irrelevant.
Journalist Ananda Portela , one of the people responsible for UOL's TikTok, explains: to talk about a bill that is yet to be voted on, for example, it makes more sense to explain what the project is about than to report events related to its process. approval. That is, offering a contextual perspective on current issues - keeping the content of the current page without the videos stop making sense.