THE RISING CULTURAL HEGEMONY ON TIKTOK: THE COUNTER-FLOW OF CONTENT FROM THE MENA REGION TO THE WEST BETWEEN 2019 AND 2021

Abstract

While TikTok has been on a continuous marathon of climbing the peak of social media platforms recently, it has abundantly shaken many of the user-behavior-based archetypes and natures of engagement. it has expeditiously turned into a stoneset blueprint and an utter crux for today’s generation; changing the game once and for all, while simultaneously carving the way for the emergence of a pioneering era of content digitization, under a wide umbrella of global cultural exchange. In this light, this study focuses on examining the noticeable counter-flow of cultural content from the MENA region to the West on the Chinese app between the years 2019 and 2021. This paper aims to analyze the rising cultural hegemon of Middle Eastern content on TikTok, as well as its grasp, reception, and consumption by Western creators and users. This study gives heed to factors such as cultural hegemony, globalization, and the cultural formation of communications theory across digital platforms. This study has been conducted through the reliance of a purposeful sampling method, in which 121 TikTok videos were thoroughly collected, each of them being mainly viral in the Western region’s and sharing a common ground that binds them to at least one aspect of an Arabic and Middle Eastern cultural context. Findings indicate that some degree of MENA content counter-flow was present concerning Western content, which is strongly possible through the calculated percentages, which accentuate how exponential growth of interest in Middle Eastern culture has been depicted by Western audiences especially between the years 2020-2021, in which entertainment (Dance, Art) had its largest share, followed by Arabic humor, beauty and fashion, romance, and lastly, food. Henceforth, this notion comes in direct comparison to its relatively non-existent aura back in 2019 and before that