TikTok as a Reflection of Liquid Society: Immediacy and Digital Consumption in the Aftermath of the Pandemic

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-803-0_29How to use a DOI?

Keywords

TikTok; liquid society; digital consumption; social media; comment analysis; liquid modernity

Abstract

This research analyzes TikTok as a paradigmatic expression of liquid society in the aftermath of the pandemic. In this regard, it seeks to examine the logic of immediate, fragmented, and affective consumption that characterizes this society. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach that triangulates two complementary sources: open-ended interviews conducted with 12 platform users aged between 18 and 25, and an observational analysis of a corpus of 1,331 comments extracted from a viral video on the platform. The theoretical framework draws on the notions of liquid modernity developed by Bauman, hypermodernity by Lipovetsky, the burnout society by Han, and snack culture by Scolari. The results show that TikTok not only facilitates brief consumption but also shapes users’ discursive production. The median length of comments is nine words, one third of the corpus includes emojis, and thematic polarization is expressed in phrases of fewer than fifteen words. These findings reflect what the interviews had already identified at the declarative level, supporting the hypothesis that the platform materializes an impatient, affective, and fragmented subjectivity characteristic of liquid modernity.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Narcisa Jessenia Medranda Morales
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/16
TI  - TikTok as a Reflection of Liquid Society: Immediacy and Digital Consumption in the Aftermath of the Pandemic
BT  - Proceedings of the VI International Conference on Communication and Applied Technologies 2026 (ICOMTA 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 317
EP  - 330
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-803-0_29
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-803-0_29
ID  - Morales2026
ER  -