New technologies and their integration into modern-day life have begun to change the traditional ideas of what community is defined as. Social media platforms such as Tik Tok have created a virtual sphere in which different communities are created and can interact with one another. Tik Tok has, in many ways, created numerous communities and groups and has even redefined the ways in which people can communicate with each other when compared to the early understandings of community and interaction. The traditional ideas of community are changing, from the idea of a small mobility-based relationship, such as family, church or workplace into a larger yet undefinable concept. As a result of new technologies, to be considered a community no longer requires such immediate and exclusive means but rather consistent forms of communication and delivery in the form of emails and direct messages. Through these new communication forms, persistence and awareness are now possible and these ideas have established a new understanding of how relationships can be maintained in the constantly evolving social media sphere. To add even more complexity to the changing idea of community, Tik Tok has emerged as a social media platform that further challenges these new ideas of community in many ways such as the application’s technical features and the algorithm that customizes an individual’s news feed based on a number of unforeseeable factors.

The idea of community, in the traditional sense, was once a way to define the structure of our closest relationships. Before social media existed, there were churches, tribes, families, civilizations and cities that served as a physical plane in which one could manage their most important relationships. Through these spheres “industrialization, bureaucratization, urbanization, capitalism, socialism and technological developments” took place (Hampton and Wellman, 2018, p. 643). These processes both led to the development of new technologies and social media forms and served as the bond that kept the traditional idea of community together. As Hampton and Wellman describe, “they nonetheless invoke images of community based on densely connected relations, organized around the home and small-town life” (2018, p. 644). The majority of connections were strong ties between people who were in regular contact with each other and had a lot of things in common with one another (Hampton and Wellman, 2018, p. 643). This type of relationship was ideal for support, companionship and aid, and featured a structure in which people could rely on one another whenever needed (Hampton and Wellman, 2018, p. 643). This idea can be easily compared to the idea of a family, in which each member has much in common with one another, ideally lives in the same house and is there for one another during hardships. Although this traditional idea of community seemed simple and effortless, there are a few drawbacks. As Hampton and Wellman describe, the idea of a community in the nineteenth century also implied strict adherence to similar values, beliefs and activities (2018, p. 644). When these values and activities were not conformed to, there would often be punishment as a result (Hampton and Wellman, 2018, p. 644). Although these ideas do not exist in the present day, it is clear to see that there is a flaw in the traditional sense of community. While the 19^th century idea of provides an inclusive theme to those that were a part of a group, the strict conformity and punishment in a way breaks and contradicts that inclusion. Or perhaps conformity and punishment are both a part of what the definition of a community is no matter how negative it may appear. Regardless, the traditional idea of community is a fragile one but it describes the significance of familiarity and connection between people during times in which social media was not around.

Technological change is a large part of the evolution to which we understand community. As Hampton and Wellman describe, it is the “constant thread in a panic that started with the shift away from villages to big cities and ultimately to relationships maintained online” (2018, p. 646). The technology itself, such as the smartphone and computer, are not to blame (Boczkowski and Mitchelstein, 2018, p. 3534), instead it is the structure of the newly developed networks that have emerged from their continued use (Hampton and Wellman, 2018, p. 646). Traditional community structure was a product of merely being born into and dying with a certain set of relations due to the lack of mobility and how easy it was to communicate over shorter distances. (Hampton and Wellman, 2018, p. 646). Now that newer technologies have emerged, these short distances have been defied and building and maintain relationships is less difficult and time consuming. Hampton says that “the reduced constraints of space and time, and separation from traditional social bonds distinguish the premodern from the modern era” (2016, p. 102). Social connections were often lost during key life events such as moving house, graduating, changing jobs and marriage (Hampton, 2016, p. 103). Fortunately with newer technologies, ‘persistent contact’ is possible and it is much easier to maintain contact and relationships with people over time (Hampton, 2016, p. 103). This persistent contact allows people to maintain communication with people without using the same resources and time that traditional relationships required. Complementary to persistent contact, pervasive awareness is an affordance of technological development. Pervasive awareness being the ability to communicate a variety of personal knowledge such as location, marital status, age and activities with other users (Hampton, 2016, p. 103). Essentially technology has change the structure of what a community is, from the traditional born-into relationships based on relevance and space into a unseeable virtual plane in which distance and time are completely defied by high-speed networks and social media platforms. To maintain a relationship and therefore be a part of a community requires less time and resources than ever before. Community is being redefined and by new technology. As previously mentioned, social media platforms are beginning to reshape and reform a number of new communities and an example of this can be seen from the popular application known as ‘Tik Tok’.

The platform Tik Tok has become one of the largest platforms to date since its release. Tik Tok merged with another platform, Musically, and officially released on the 2^nd of August 2018. The app has far surpassed the number of downloads that Facebook has and sums to over 800 million active users (Cervi, 2021, p. 199). Tik Tok essentially allows users to create a video that ranges from 3 to 60 seconds in length and incorporates the use of overlayed music, facial filters and video editing features such as slow-motion or particle effects (Cervi, 2021, p. 199). Cervi notes that Tik Tok uses artificial intelligence to customise each users main feed through a range of factors such as videos they like, comment on and how long they watch a video for (2021, p. 199). It is “random, divorced from context, ephemeral” and cannot be clearly defined as a distinct application (Cervi, 2021, p. 200). The use of the algorithm raises the question of whether or not users are categorised in a certain way based on their usage and viewership but more of this will be discussed in the next paragraph. The application Tik Tok itself is an evolved form of the newer communication techniques that have taken form. Direct messaging and emailing has become even simpler with the way Tik Tok, and of course other social media platforms, incorporates commenting and liking. It makes the effortless affordances of new technologies even easier. There are even methods in which comments that are made on a post can be replied to in two forms. One being a simple text reply which will appear underneath the main comment. Another being a video reply in which the original creator of a post can reply to a comment made on their post in the form of another Tik Tok video. It is interesting to see the way that Tik Tok has invented new methods to communicate with other users that works in a cohesive manner with the application’s initial structure.

In the last paragraph Tik Tok was defined as a platform that is adding new forms of communication through the use of newer technologies. These new forms of communication however strengthen communities and have led to the creation of many niches within one large user-base. Tik Tok changed the manner of video streaming and had “originally existed as a short video community specializing in online entertainment” (Zhang, 2021, p. 220). A major aspect of Tik Tok’s rising popularity is the creation of ‘duets’ and ‘challenges’. Dueting is similar to the previously discussed video reply however it is a method of co-creation in which the 2^nd content creator adds a piece of content onto the original content creator’s video. Challenges on the other hand are described by Cervi as “community-created trends in which many Tik Tok users will make videos attempting to do the same thing” (2021, p. 200). These challenges and duets serve as an even more interactive form of communication between people when compared to the traditional methods of maintaining a specific relationship. The algorithm of the application, as mentioned previously, creates a targeted news feed for each user based on the types of media and content creators that they interact with the most. It can eventually lead to the discovery of different content and creators that share a specific interest or identity (Olheiser, 2021, p. 52). Adding to this, Olheiser further explains that Tik Tok’s structure is like a “treasure map: to get to the wholesome world of frog Tik Tok you had to leave Straight Tik Tok, find your way to StonerWitch or Cottagecore, pass through Trans and Non-Binary, and ‘go through the portal to reach the promised land’” (2021, p. 53). What Olheiser is saying in essence is that the algorithm of Tik Tok allows people to sift their way through a large database of niches and groups in order to find their own identity and therefore their community. Through these examples, it is clear to see that both the structure of Tik Tok as an application creates a variety of communication forms through the reply features, challenges, duets and other trends and the algorithm of the app in which people are able to discover and sift through different communities until they come to the community that they interact and engage with the most. In this sense, such a platform not only changes the traditional stereotypes that surround the definition of community but also gives people an opportunity to find their own identity and niche.

There has been much change as a result the changes in technology. New technologies have strengthened and recreated pre-conceived notions about what the term community means. Community was once thought to describe relationships that were bound through limited space and time. Birthplace, time and previous relationships were the main components that served for one’s community as seen in examples such as churches, tribes and workplaces. However as time has gone on and newer technologies have been developed, the definition of community has begun to change and is repurposed. New technologies have allowed relationships to be maintained with ease thanks to social media and communication forms such as direct messaging and emails. Not to mention the creation of ideas such as persistent communication and pervasive awareness that have allowed people to stay up-to-date with one another’s life events such as marriage or moving countries which once were the reason for the decay of a relationship. One such platform that has developed upon these new technologies is the platform Tik Tok that allows users to create short form videos that can be interacted with and communicated across through a range of newly created mediums. Tik Tok has strengthened and recreated the definition of community through its app structure, its network of different groups and content communities and the way in which users can interact with one another through features and trends such as duets, challenges and replies. While this paper goes into detail about that community is and how its definition has changed over time with new technologies being factored in, there is not a lot discussed about the factors that have changed the traditional definition of community or the newer understanding of the term. Perhaps in future, more about the new concept of community and the reasoning behind why it should be re-purposed can be discussed in detail. However, this paper provides a clear understanding of how new technologies, specifically platforms such as Tik Tok have strengthened communities and reshaped its definition from past.

Reference List:

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Hampton, K. N. & Wellman, B. (2018). Lost and saved… again: The moral panic about the loss of community takes hold of social media. Contemporary Sociology, 47(6), 641-651. https://www.doi.org/10.1177/0094306118805415

Ohlheiser, A. (2021). Tik Tok: Recommendation algorithms. Technology Review, 124(2), 52. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2496345437/fulltextPDF/57A51E430F64653PQ/1?accountid=10382

Zhang, Z. (2021). Infrastructuralization of Tik Tok: Transformation, power relationships and automatization of video entertainment in China. Media, Culture & Society, 43(2), 219-236. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720939452