ql-align-justify">Particularly among younger generations like Gen Z and Gen Alpha, TikTok has become an integral part of people's lives. With 64 million impressions, the highest number of TikTok users as of 2025, the Philippines ranked seventh globally, according to Dr. Rogelio Alicor Panao's data analysis (Baclig, 2025).

Its primary target audience is 18 to 24-year-olds due to its wide appeal and varied content. TikTok is promoted as a news and information platform in addition to entertaining. Beyond the typical lip-syncing, dancing, or humorous videos, users share information, life lessons, and social awareness on TikTok, which is also used by local and international news organizations such as GMA News and the BBC to reach viewers (BSBI, 2023).

The usefulness of TikTok for journalism has also been discussed because of its algorithm, which facilitates publishing and enables users to use hashtags to show up in user feeds and trends (Zeng and Abidin, 2021). Furthermore, by helping users develop professional and technical skills, evaluate information critically, and identify factual content on multiple social media platforms, TikTok has contributed to the expansion of journalism (Henneman, 2020).

Nowadays, TikTok has grown to be a significant communication tool as younger generations have developed the macro skill of viewing. Through posts and brief videos, social media apps are made to help people meet new people, socialize, and stay informed. Sites like TikTok can hold users' attention even for brief periods of time, with the longest video format lasting up to ten minutes. Using multimodal literacy and the availability of developing mobile technology, it improves and adjusts to digital communication skills in this way.

TikTok has accumulated a sizable user base in addition to its well-known rivals, Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter), with at least half of them (55%) receiving frequent updates about the platform's news (Chavda, 2025).

References

Baclig, C. E. (2026, February). From trends to truth: TikTok’s expanding role in Philippine public life. INQUIRER.net. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2176122/from-trends-to-truth-tiktoks-expanding-role-in-philippine-public-life

Berlin School of Business and Innovation. (2023, December 21). How TikTok has become a source of information for young people. BSBI. https://www.berlinsbi.com/blog/how-tiktok-has-become-a-source-of-information-for-young-people

Bolz, L. (2023). Co-writing journalism on TikTok: media legitimacy and edutainment communities. Online Media and Global Communication, 2(3), 446–467. https://doi.org/10.1515/omgc-2023-2005

Chavda, J. (2025, September 25). 1 in 5 Americans now regularly get news on TikTok, up sharply from 2020. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/09/25/1-in-5-americans-now-regularly-get-news-on-tiktok-up-sharply-from-2020/

Henneman, T. (2020). Beyond Lip-Synching: Experimenting with TikTok Storytelling. ResearchGate, 10(2), 1–14. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349151860_Beyond_Lip-Synching_Experimenting_with_TikTok_Storytelling

Zeng, J., & Abidin, C. (2021). “#OkBoomer, time to meet the Zoomers”: studying the memefication of intergenerational politics on TikTok. Information, Communication & Society, 24(16), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2021.1961007

TikTok as an Emerging Social Practice: Communication, Journalism, and Multimodal Literacies