Looking at social media as a new form of cultural coding: The case of TikTok

Today, developments in new communication technologies have caused the interest to shift to social media. In this study, TikTok, one of the social media platforms, was examined based on the Frankfurt School and the Culture Industry concept, one of its important concepts. In the theoretical background of the study, firstly, the theories of culturally oriented classical thinkers about modernity, then the Frankfurt School and the following postmodern theories are included in order to provide a basis for the study. Then, under the title of new media culture, visual culture, digital culture were emphasized, social media and especially TikTok were discussed from a cultural perspective. In the study, 14 TikTok user accounts, 7 women and 7 men, determined according to certain criteria, were examined. User's video content, profile information, most liked viewer comments on user's viral videos were analyzed. In the study, the viral TikTok videos were interpreted by creating descriptive themes according to the data obtained within the theoretical framework of the study. It has been assumed that since Adorno and Horkheimer, the changes in technology, the way of production and society, and especially the changes that occur with the digitalization of communication tools, have changed the nature of the culture industry. In this study conducted on TikTok, which can be considered the last link of change, it was concluded that the logic of the concepts that originated the culture industry and later postmodernity continues and reached an even more extreme point in TikTok. New values reflected as cultural diversity such as appreciation, sharing, visuality, attractiveness, seeking difference, and exhibitionism have now turned into a new form of the culture industry with an increase that can be expressed in numbers. The new media, social media and the media transformed as TikTok have integrated the distinction between production and consumption in the past, and has turned into a new cultural coding tool as both a production and consumption tool.