Scrolling One More Time: How TikTok Is Redefining News Consumption and Journalistic Practices among Peruvian Youth

This study examines how TikTok has transformed news consumption habits and journalistic practices among Peruvian youth aged 18-25. Using an interpretive qualitative design based on 20 semi-structured interviews, the research reveals that TikTok has become a dominant gateway for news, displacing traditional media through short, visual, and emotionally engaging formats that merge information with entertainment. Participants described the platform as both informative and expressive, valuing immediacy, authenticity, and emotional connection over institutional credibility. Findings reveal a profound shift toward fragmented, algorithm-driven news exposure and the emergence of hybrid journalism, where traditional values of truthfulness, objectivity, and credibility intersect with newer logics of affect, visibility, and digital participation. Although young users are aware of misinformation risks, they display developing forms of critical and participatory media literacy, verifying, remixing, and contextualizing content within their social networks. This suggests that informational judgment is no longer anchored solely in institutional authority but is increasingly coconstructed through emotional resonance, peer validation, and platform-specific cues. Ultimately, TikTok functions not merely as a news channel but as a cultural and symbolic arena where information, identity, and emotion converge-transforming news consumption into a shared meaning-making practice and redefining what it means to be informed, to trust, and to practice journalism in the age of algorithms.