When Casey Fiesler got tenure a few years ago, several references praised her public scholarship – specifically her TikTok account.
The associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado, Boulder has almost 120,000 followers on the short-form video-sharing platform, with some of her posts generating millions of views.
Fiesler, who studies technology policy, uses her account to share research and news on artificial intelligence (AI), research ethics and the all-powerful TikTok algorithm itself.
These subjects appeal to the app’s younger, tech-savvy users but academics from many different fields are increasingly setting up profiles and growing their audiences for a variety of reasons.
Nathan Nobis, professor of philosophy at Morehouse College, shares “Philosophy 101” videos on everything from the morality of killing animals to the ethics of religion.
In addition to educating his own students, he is driven by educating the public on both these topics and on being an academic itself, he told Times Higher Education.
“Many people have no real idea what academics do or they have many misconceptions about what they do, and often this is because like they’ve never interacted with any of them. So, I think in general, the more academics are out there trying to show some of what they do, the better.”
Conversely, Nobis said TikTok is a good way of receiving feedback from the general public, which in turn can help academics make a better case that what they do is valuable and should be supported.
“An academic can either be trying to meet the public where they’re at or not, and I don’t suppose the not is really doing much good.”
Educating the public is much easier to do on an algorithm-based app such as TikTok, which has more than 1.5 billion monthly users, rather than platforms where users have to actively search for content.
“The great thing about TikTok is that…people stumble onto my content without necessarily looking for it,” said Fiesler. “There’s a dancing video and there’s a dog and then suddenly there’s me, so it’s a way to reach people, to teach them things when they might not be explicitly looking for it.”
Fiesler said making work publicly accessible is particularly important for newer subjects such as AI, which many people will never learn about through formal education.
“Social media actually is a really good place for people to learn things as long as they’re able to evaluate the credibility of who they’re learning from, which is also why I think it’s really important for experts and educators to do this kind of work.”
For Oli Mould, professor in human geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, posting on TikTok is also beneficial for countering misinformation online, increasing interest in higher education among a young user base, and for boosting an academic’s career profile.
“We’re always told to be public-facing, and this is a really easy way of doing that without having to worry about massive grants and having to get link-ups with governments and companies.”
Mould has received a number of media engagements off the back of some of his videos, which focus on culture and politics, as well as some “pocket money”. TikTok pays larger accounts about 30 to 40p for every 1,000 views they receive.
Although regularly sharing videos can be time-consuming, another relative benefit of TikTok is the time it takes, with some of Moulds’s videos only requiring about 20 minutes’ work.
“That’s the beauty of TikTok to some degree, as opposed to something like YouTube which requires a lot more editing and a more professional setup.
“Whereas TikTok, you can just rant at a camera for 10 minutes and all of a sudden it can get millions of views.”
While amateurish videos by individuals are popular, official university accounts, like many large brands, struggle on TikTok.
“The things that do well in these spheres are deliberate non-commercial ones…the anti-advert,” said Mould. “The university stuff that I see can be quite corporate and, I think a lot of students see through that.”
The University of Oxford shares topical videos and quirky research stories from academics, as well as more straightforward advice on university life, to almost 900,000 followers – but that is very much the exception to the rule.
Virtually all members of Universities UK have very active TikTok accounts – but very few have more followers than individuals such as Mould.
He warned that increased uptake of TikTok by academics could be seen as part of a trend towards the neoliberalisation and “atomisation” of education, as opposed to the traditional university degree.
“Academic education is founded upon class-based learning and being together with peers and that’s absolutely vital and so TikTok, for all its benefits, if it went too far down the other route, is a threat to that.”
There are also more direct risks to academics. Fiesler has had negative comments about her appearance, her intellect and people complaining directly to her university.
In attempting to become a social media influencer as part of a BBC Radio 4 programme last year, “historian of funky things” Alun Withey also received a “nasty period” of abuse for his appearance.
But the senior lecturer in history at the University of Exeter said he has adopted a policy to “ignore, block and report” hateful comments and has learned to see the benefits of the app – even on a small scale.
“If I put a post out and it reaches 1,000 people, that’s probably 900 more people than will read my academic journal article in a year. If you think of a room full of 1,000 people and you were speaking to them, that’s a win.”
While academics have been slow to engage with TikTok, Withey urged those from all disciplines to give it a go and try to find their niche audience.
“The people watching these are the age of my students…they don’t want a trendy vicar who’s trying to be down with them.
“So, I know it sounds trite, but be yourself. That’s what people want.”
patrick.jack
