Abstract:
Over 120 million US citizens use TikTok (Statista 2024). Especially young adults watch short videos of people dancing, lip synching or sharing their opinions on trending topics. TikTok has not only become the biggest online platform for creating and sharing content online, it has also been shaping the public opinion regarding political decisions around the world. The social media app feeds its users with content tailored to their preferences. This contributes to the widening gap between opposite political camps. While some creators claim to share the truth about political leaders, others arbitrarily spread misinformation in order to influence the outcome of elections without their consumers’ awareness. Despite their policy of prohibition of political advertisement, users of TikTok find ways to depreciate one candidate or promote another.
This workshop aims at developing a tool for students and their teachers to analyze TikTok videos with influential content using the example of the Presidential Elections of 2024. After an introduction to the electoral system of the USA and the two main parties, students will look into the political content on the platform and come up with valid criteria to evaluate TikToks sharing political views on the presidential candidates. The videos will be analyzed not only on their content and argumentation, but also on the format and performance of the creator or other people featured. In the end, students will be tasked to create their own TikTok-like videos promoting opinions they support.
DataReportal, & We Are Social, & Meltwater. (July 31, 2024). Countries with the largest TikTok audience as of July 2024 (in millions) [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved September 03, 2024, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1299807/number-of-monthly-unique-tiktok-users/
Bio:
Juliane Götz is a research assistant at the English Didactics department at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). In 2019, she graduated with a degree in English Studies, Education Studies and Political Sciences from MLU. During her studies, she was teaching English at different levels in Germany as well as German as a Foreign Language at Winterbourne International Academy in Bristol, UK, in 2014/15. Additionally, she joined a research team of the Political Didactics department in a project on democratic education at secondary schools in Saxony-Anhalt. After graduating, she went on to teach English and Social Studies at secondary school level. Since 2021, she has been pursuing a PhD in English Didactics. Her research focuses on conversation analysis of teacher-student-interaction led by pre-service teachers.
Kim Röding studied English, Physical Education and Italian at the Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg and the University of New Mexico. She wrote her thesis on “Teaching 9/11 – Eine Unterrichtsreihe für die gymnasiale Oberstufe zu den Ereignissen und Folgen des 11. September 2001”. During her studies, she worked as a student assistant and took up opportunities to teach English as a Foreign Language at several German schools as well as an American high school. She recently joined the English Institute at Martin-Luther-University as an assistant researcher in the field of English Didactics and looks forward to realizing her interest in the potential of short films for the EFL classroom in a PhD project. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, baking, drawing, painting, and doing sports. She is a member of a track and field team and plays Ultimate Frisbee.