Language Use in TikTok Activism by Gen Z Communities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.71435/639190Keywords:
Tiktok Activism, Gen Z, Language Use, Digital Discourse, Organizational CommunicationAbstract
Purpose: This study investigates the linguistic behaviors of Generation Z in TikTok-driven protest movements and explores their implications for management studies. It examines how Gen Z employs creative language practices to construct activist discourse and challenge institutional authority within global digital platforms.
Subjects and Methods: Employing a qualitative approach, the study analyzes linguistic tools such as satire, vernacular codes, emotional appeals, and participatory memes within TikTok content created by Gen Z communities. Data were drawn from online observations and discourse analysis of protest-related materials, focusing on how these practices shape communicative dynamics.
Results: The findings indicate that Gen Z’s targeted linguistic actions on TikTok represent a sophisticated form of discursive agency. Rather than being ephemeral, these practices influence the image of social groups, corporate reputation, and stakeholder legitimacy. Within management contexts, Gen Z activism disrupts traditional organizational communication, creating new challenges for stakeholder engagement and crisis management. Activists function as decentralized communication agents, compelling institutional actors to respond to digitally constructed meanings.
Conclusions: The study concludes that organizations must adapt to communication environments characterized by linguistic hybridity, digital remix culture, and affective connectivity. Managers are urged to recognize and engage with these dynamics proactively to maintain ethical authenticity and value alignment.
Downloads
References
Ambarwati, M. F. L. (2023). Menavigasi Generasi Z: Tantangan Bagi Manajemen SDM di Era Baru. TarFomedia, 4(2), 8-14. https://doi.org/10.36914/tarfo.v4.i2.313
Apostolopoulou, E., Bormpoudakis, D., Chatzipavlidis, A., Cortés Vázquez, J. J., Florea, I., Gearey, M., ... & Wahby, N. (2022). Radical social innovations and the spatialities of grassroots activism: navigating pathways for tackling inequality and reinventing the commons. Journal of Political Ecology. https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.2292
Awalia, F., & Zulkarnaini, Z. (2025). Memahami pola perilaku Generasi Z di era digital. Jurnal Teknologi Dan Sains Modern, 2(1), 15-25. https://doi.org/10.69930/jtsm.v2i1.251
Blais, M., & Dupuis-Déri, F. (2022). Feminist and antifeminist everyday activism: Tactical choices, emotions, and ‘humor’. Gender issues, 39(3), 275-290. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-021-09290-7
Bowman Williams, J., Mezey, N., & Singh, L. O. (2021). # BlackLivesMatter—Getting from contemporary social movements to structural change.
Chen, Z. (2024). Subtitling as multimodal representation: a corpus-based experimental approach to text-image relations.
Deem, A. (2019). Extreme speech| The digital traces of# whitegenocide and alt-right affective economies of transgression. International Journal of communication, 13, 20-20.
Dynel, M. (2021). COVID-19 memes going viral: On the multiple multimodal voices behind face masks. Discourse & Society, 32(2), 175-195. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926520970385
Farida, F., Supardi, S., Abduh, A., Muchtar, J., Rosmaladewi, R., & Arham, M. (2024). Technology and hybrid multimedia for language learning and cross-cultural communication in higher education. ASEAN Journal of Science and Engineering, 4(2), 331-348.
Ferreira, G. B. (2025). The Algorithmic Aesthetic: Psychopower, Attention, and the Crisis of the Public Sphere. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 01914537251407951. https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537251407951
Filatova, O., & Volkovskii, D. (2020, September). The online discourse as a form of e-Participation: the experience of internet discourse research. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (pp. 326-333). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65218-0_3
Friberg, A. (2022). On the need for (con) temporary utopias: temporal reflections on the climate rhetoric of environmental youth movements. Time & Society, 31(1), 48-68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961463X21998845
Haque, R. (2025). Media in Gender Violence: A Victim-Believing Model. In Contemporary Gender Transformations in South Asia: Transcending the Archetype of Womanhood (pp. 143-159). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83708-368-820251008
Holborow, M. (2021). Language skills as human capital? Challenging the neoliberal frame. In Education and the Discourse of Global Neoliberalism (pp. 50-62). Routledge.
Jalli, N. (2025). Viral justice: TikTok activism, misinformation, and the fight for social change in Southeast Asia. Social Media+ Society, 11(1), 20563051251318122. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251318122
Katili, A. Y., Katili, A. A. Z., & Pariono, A. (2025). Partisipasi politik generasi muda di era digital: Antara kesadaran kritis dan aktivisme daring. Jurnal Ekonomi, Manajemen, Ilmu Sosial dan Politik (J-EMSPOL), 2(4), 198-212. https://doi.org/10.69623/j-emspol.v2i4.175
Lee, J., & Abidin, C. (2023). Introduction to the special issue of “TikTok and social movements”. Social Media+ Society, 9(1), 20563051231157452. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231157452
MacKinnon, K. R., Kia, H., & Lacombe-Duncan, A. (2021). Examining TikTok’s potential for community-engaged digital knowledge mobilization with equity-seeking groups. Journal of medical Internet research, 23(12), e30315. https://doi.org/10.2196/30315
Marenco, M., & Seidl, T. (2021). The discursive construction of digitalization: A comparative analysis of national discourses on the digital future of work. European Political Science Review, 13(3), 391-409. https://doi.org/10.2196/30315
Martin, R. (2025). Environmental protest, contention, and the law: conceptualizing the Public Order Act 2023. Journal of Law and Society, 52(3), 363-389. https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.70009
Nazeer, I., Yousaf, S., & Anwar, N. (2023). Analyzing linguistic shifts in political discourse: A corpus-based study of political rhetoric in the digital age. Pakistan Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 11(4), 3924-3933.
Neundorf, A., Nazrullaeva, E., Northmore-Ball, K., Tertytchnaya, K., & Kim, W. (2023). Varieties of indoctrination (V-Indoc): Introducing a global dataset on the politicization of education and the media. V-Dem Working Paper, 136. https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4453086
Nurjamin, A., Masita, E., Lisetyo, A., Dharta, F. Y., Mumfangati, T., Saputra, N., & Andiyan, A. (2023). The millennial generation and the caption language of social media. Migration Letters, 20(8), 157-168.
Parfaite, F. (2024). ‘Filtered Out’but Not Forgotten: How Black Users Co-Produce Algorithmic Identity on TikTok (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania).
Rehman, S. U., Gulzar, R., & Aslam, W. (2022). Developing the integrated marketing communication (imc) through social media (sm): the modern marketing communication approach. Sage Open, 12(2), 21582440221099936. https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440221099936
Ristovska, S. (2021). Seeing human rights: Video activism as a proxy profession. MIT Press.
Rodima-Taylor, D. (2024). Grassroots data activism and polycentric governance: perspectives from the margins. In Global Digital Data Governance (pp. 68-87). Routledge.
Rossini, P. (2022). Beyond incivility: Understanding patterns of uncivil and intolerant discourse in online political talk. Communication Research, 49(3), 399-425. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650220921314
Schrott, E. C. (2025). Political Performances: TikTok’s Sonic Influence on Affective Activist Expression. Musicologica Austriaca: Journal for Austrian Music Studies, 54-78. https://doi.org/10.71045/musau.2025.SI.20
Shahu, A., Wölfer, M., & Michahelles, F. (2024). Carbon rebellion: Empowerment using data-driven narratives. ACM Journal on Computing and Sustainable Societies, 2(4), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1145/3677324
Sigurdardottir, H., Imani, M., & Edalati, Z. (2024). Asking for solidarity: Embodied feminist practices in digital space. Gender & Development, 32(1-2), 523-545. https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2024.2365058
Sokhova, Z. B., & Red’ko, V. G. (2021). A self-organization model for autonomous agents in a decentralized environment. CONTROL SCIENCES Учредители: Институт проблем управления им. ВА Трапезникова РАН, (2), 29-37. http://doi.org/10.25728/cs.2021.2.4
Soriano, C. R. R., & Gaw, F. (2022). Platforms, alternative influence, and networked political brokerage on YouTube. Convergence, 28(3), 781-803. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565211029769
Soules, M. (2021). Play Attention. New Explorations: Studies in Culture and Communication, 2(1).
Stepnik, A. (2023). Active curation: Algorithmic awareness for cultural commentary on social media platforms (Doctoral dissertation).
Tóth, Á., Suta, A., & Szauter, F. (2022). Interrelation between the climate-related sustainability and the financial reporting disclosures of the European automotive industry. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, 24(1), 437-445. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-021-02108-w
Vaara, E., & Whittle, A. (2022). Common sense, new sense or non‐sense? A critical discursive perspective on power in collective sensemaking. Journal of Management Studies, 59(3), 755-781. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12783
Wajdi, M., Susanto, B., Sumartana, I. M., Sutiarso, M. A., & Hadi, W. (2024). Profile of generation Z characteristics: Implications for contemporary educational approaches. Kajian Pendidikan, Seni, Budaya, Sosial dan Lingkungan, 1(1), 33-44. https://doi.org/10.58881/kpsbsl.v1i1.8
Wilbanks, R. (2017). Real vegan cheese and the artistic critique of biotechnology. Engaging science, technology, and society, 3, 180. https://doi.org/10.17351/ests2017.53
Wright, S., Graham, T., & Jackson, D. (2015). Third space, social media, and everyday political talk. In The Routledge companion to social media and politics (pp. 74-88). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315716299
Xiao, W. (2024). The language of the body: The role and significance of body shaping in drama art education. Arts Educa, 38.
Zhao, X., & Abidin, C. (2023). The “fox eye” challenge trend: Anti-racism work, platform affordances, and the vernacular of gesticular activism on TikTok. Social Media+ Society, 9(1), 20563051231157590. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231157590
Zis, S. F., Effendi, N., & Roem, E. R. (2021). Perubahan perilaku komunikasi generasi milenial dan generasi z di era digital. Satwika: Kajian Ilmu Budaya Dan Perubahan Sosial, 5(1), 69-87. https://doi.org/10.22219/satwika.v5i1.15550
.jpg)
