CONTENIDOS DIGITALES EN LA ERA DE TIKTOK: PERCEPCIÓN DE LOS USUARIOS DEL BOTÓN COVID-19 EN ESPAÑA.

Covid-19 has provoked a global health crisis that has had profound social, cultural, economic and communicative implications (Castillo-Esparcia; Fernández-Souto; Puentes-Rivera, 2020). Social networks have proven to be an ideal and fundamental means of communication for transmitting key information on matters of general interest (Cancelo; Gadea, 2013). For this reason, these platforms acquire a determining role in the pandemic. TikTok, one of the emerging networks of the last two years, has introduced, in its mobile version, the Covid-19 button; a tool designed to help its community to protect themselves and others from the coronavirus. The initiative consists of resolving doubts and sharing information with members of the community, based on compliance with health recommendations (frequent hand washing, use of masks, etc.) issued by the Spanish Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization. The purpose of the research is to analyze the public perception of TikTok users about this tool and the resources available in its Spanish version, with the aim of determining how they value these contents, as well as their usefulness. For this purpose, a mixed methodology has been designed, consisting of a quantitative and qualitative analysis, which has materialized through an online survey addressed to a group of prosumers of the platform. The results reflect that these individuals favorably value the digital content shared on TikTok. However, they point out that it would be necessary to improve the design and adaptation of these resources to the platform and the target audience, as expressed in the sources consulted in the article (Marcelino, 2015; De-las-Casas, 2020). Therefore, the investigation reveals that the potential of this communication tool to offer information of general interest about the coronavirus is not being fully exploited. Finally, future lines of research at work are proposed, such as knowing the functionality of similar initiatives in other social networks or analyzing the TikTok messages disseminated by public institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]