TikTok is a platform that is becoming increasingly relevant for political communication. But until recently, there has been no comprehensive, systematically organised database detailing which political actors in Austria are active on the platform, how they use TikTok and how successful they are in doing so.

That is why students at the University of Innsbruck, as part of the ‘Political Communication’ Master’s seminar led by Associate Professor Lore Hayek, independently compiled a dataset on the use of TikTok by Austrian politicians. They analysed the data, visualised their findings in numerous graphs and made them available to the public via a website they set up themselves. To ensure the data from the TikTok Atlas can be reused for further academic analysis, it has also been published in the AUSSDA Dataverse, complete with extensive documentation.

For her design of this collaborative research project, in which the students went through the entire research cycle, Lore Hayek recently received the Ars Docendi Recognition Award in the category ‘Research-based or Art-led Teaching’. The jury particularly emphasised the project’s fulfilment of the criteria of student-centred and competence-based approaches, as well as innovative higher education pedagogy.

Lore Hayek recently received the Ars Docendi Recognition Award in the category ‘Research-based or Art-led Teaching’ for her design of this collaborative research project, in which the students went through the entire research cycle. The jury particularly emphasised that the project fulfilled the criteria of a student-centred and competence-based approach, as well as being innovative in terms of higher education pedagogy.

We warmly congratulate Lore Hayek!