Research Poster
My research aims to examine whether the banning of TikTok is justified by analysing the political implications of TikTok’s social media surveillance and the broader political impact on students. TikTok is a Chinese social media app which has faced privacy concerns due to its Chinese ownership, and many governments have threatened to ban TikTok. Despite its 'national security threat' label, concrete evidence of the degree of its social media surveillance and media manipulations. However, prior studies on justifying a TikTok ban predominantly focus on the national level, overlooking the significant impact on smaller stakeholders such as student TikTokers. Thus, the objective is to investigate the political impact of TikTok’s manipulated media on its users by gathering opinions from student TikTok users and the user’s parents. The search takes a step further by analysing if banning TikTok violates its users’ autonomy to access their preferred media app. It also explores the unexplored area of this topic-the willingness of TikTokers to boycott the app. Additionally, the research considers alternative solutions to mitigate TikTok’s risks and examines the effectiveness of these approaches.
Hello, my name is Belle and I am a PPE student at Durham University. I am originally from Hong Kong but I have been studying in the UK since 2018 and recently our family has migrated to Edinburgh. It is my privilege to be a Laidlaw scholar and I am so pleased to be part of the community. I cannot wait to begin my research to understand how TikTok's potential social media surveillance and media manipulation influences student TikTok users politically.
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What a cool poster! Very visually engaging. The debate surrounding TikTok’s potential ban and its implications on freedom, privacy, and political perspectives is very much the zeitgeist of our times, and your project casts a much-needed scholarly lens on it. Insightful work!