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Abstract
In digital communication, TikTok has changed the landscape of information consumption, breaking down traditional one-sided communication and making it participatory among the platform users through the engagement they generate with news content. Currently, the constant changes in social media have transformed how users consume and interact with informational content. TikTok is a social network that has more than 1.59 billion active users as of early 2025. Based on the above, a need arose to analyze the impact of independent journalism on TikTok in order to understand how journalistic content influences audience engagement in the context of digital media communication in Cuenca, Ecuador. The methodology employed was a mixed-methods, correlational, non-experimental design involving a content analysis of TikTok specifically related to news content, along with interviews and metrics analysis, which enabled the researchers to obtain results showing how independent journalism on TikTok significantly influences audience content engagement in Cuenca, Ecuador.
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