Managing Student Content Creators: TikTok as Artistic-Cultural Platform and Virtual Community Engagement

Abstract

This study falls within the scope of arts management in a digital setting. In the context of this research, arts students are regarded as arts managers tasked to operate an online artistic-cultural platform. As such, TikTok was selected for the purpose of achieving the organizational objectives of the student-art managers. The study aims to explore the nature of the virtual organization and further the dissemination of artistic-cultural contents which inform part of the members’ identity, strategy, and goal. Underpinned by theories of management, digitalization, innovation and the media, this study employs the mixed method approach in which data was collected in the form of the group’s formation and content uploads. Analysis of the content uploads include a qualitative analysis of the contents, and a quantitative analysis represented by numbers of views and likes. A further objective of the study is the examination of community engagement in which thematic analysis was performed on the interaction between the content creators and users for the categories of positive, negative, and neutral comments. This study provides findings and discoveries on critical aspects of students as arts managers operating in a virtual setting and the expression of art and culture for young people. Additionally, it serves to describe the manner of the creator-audience engagement and the identification of issues in such an undertaking.