PURPOSE - The issue of drug markets on social media platforms are under-researched. To help address the research gap, this paper accounts for the emerging drug dealing trends surrounding the community on TikTok. The purpose of this paper is to understand how drug dealers use a trending social media platform, namely TikTok, to advertise and sell illegal drugs and how the environment on TikTok facilitates drug promotions on the platform. METHOD - Data were gathered during seven weeks of netnographic fieldwork conducted among Swedish accounts on TikTok marketing drugs through video- and image posts. All evidence of content in which drug marketing was evident, including drug dealer profiles and open interactions of drug dealers and customers in the comment sections, was saved, coded and analyzed. The concepts of routine activity theory were applied and discussed in relation to the prevalence of the drug markets on TikTok. FINDINGS - In total, 116 posts with content of advertisements of illegal drugs were identified, divided into 43 Sweden-based profiles. Some drug dealer profiles were more professional than others and offered various drug types and services. Drug dealers adopted several marketing strategies, facilitated by the functions and algorithms of TikTok, to promote their drug dealing profiles and promotions. KEYWORDS - netnography, cyber-environment, drug promotion, sale of drugs, algorithms, social media platforms, drug dealing activity. / TikTok, a social media platform which has grown to be one of the most popular communities globally to create and share short videos and live streams with millions of viewers everyday has recently become a new way of promoting the sale and distribution of illegal drugs. Drug dealing on TikTok has recently caught the attention of the Swedish news media, since Swedish Police Officers have reported observing increasingly more drug advertisements flourish in the comment sections with various code words for drugs, such as snow emojis symbolizing cocaine (Dagens Nyheter, 2021; Aftonbladet, 2021). This trend is an urgent issue; not only because of the increasingly strategic marketing strategies targeting young users on the platform with readily available menus of illegal drugs in supply available 24/7, but considering the thousands of minors who may be influenced by the increasingly more approachable promotions and readily available distribution offers; and the consequences of young people's health and well-being that follows. By exploring the settings of TikTok through a netnographic method, this study aims to identify the marketing and sale of drugs on TikTok and account for characteristics surrounding the drug dealing activity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mau-60943 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Larsson, Nicole |
| Publisher | Malmö universitet, Institutionen för kriminologi (KR) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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