Political influencers communication during the 2023 Argentinian campaign on TikTok

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Published: Feb 26, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15178/va.2025.158.e1558
Keywords:
TikTok, political influencers, discourses, electoral campaign, citizenship

Main Article Content

Ana Slimovich
Gino Germani Research Institute
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7297-4942

Abstract

Introduction: the aim of this research is to find out about the modes of communication used by Argentinean political influencers on TikTok during the 2023 presidential campaign, in order to investigate the content -between August and November- published by 10 influencers, who have different statuses in terms of the number of followers. We analyse the strategies of enunciation, the convergences between digital politics and the contents of the mass media, the political internet users involved and the types of content. Methodology: a qualitative analysis was carried out, using methodological tools from socio-semiotics. Results: the existence of 4 enunciative strategies in their clips has been evidenced: the imitation of ways of communicating on social networks of citizens, politicians, militant internet users and journalists. Thus, with their content on the media platform, they emulate the form of enunciation of other socio-political subjects. Discussion: it was observed that these new digital actors generate discourses of adherence to one of the political candidates, however, at the same time, they also produce discourses in rejection of one or more of them, as well as of politics in general. Conclusions: it has been shown that not all political influencers during the Argentinean campaign of 2023 assume the role of filter - of intermediaries - between politicians and citizens, but that this is linked to their strategy of enunciation.

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How to Cite
Slimovich, Ana. 2025. “Political Influencers Communication During the 2023 Argentinian Campaign on TikTok”. Vivat Academia. Journal of Communication 158 (February):1-29. https://doi.org/10.15178/va.2025.158.e1558.
Issue
Número 158 (2025)
Section
Research Articles
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Author Biography

Ana Slimovich, Gino Germani Research Institute

She holds a Ph.D in Social Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).  She is an Associate researcher of CONICET at the Gino Germani Research Institute. She was awarded with the "National Prize Award for the Best Doctoral Thesis in Social Sciences", EUDEBA and UBA (2019): "The Crossroads of Latin American Democracy". She leads the research projects PIBAA-CONICET: "Contemporary mediatization in social networks" and PICT: "The Argentine elections in the framework of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021". She has been a visiting professors and researchers at the University of Salamanca, the University of Malaga, the Metropolitan Technological University of Santiago de Chile and the Catholic University of Temuco. She is a graduate and postgraduate professor at the UBA and the University of San Andrés. She is the author of the book: "Social Networks, Television and Argentine Elections", published by Eudeba (2022).

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