“Guadalajara premium”. Inequality and social class perspectives in the contents of TikTok

Abstract

As part of the consequences of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, it generated a never-before-seen boom in digital platforms on a global scale. Technological development in the current capitalist society allowed communication to expand even further, enhancing digital social networks such as TikTok. It is important to understand this type of socio-technological phenomena in the context of the prevailing social inequality, which operates on a global scale, and which affects more intensely certain places and populations in the world, such as Latin America and the Caribbean, which is one of the most unequal regions in the world. The objective of this work is to generate evidence about how the naturalization of inequality is presented on digital platforms. Based on a theoretical framework on the phenomenon of inequality and social classes, and the qualitative methodological perspective of critical analysis of visual discourse, this study shows aspects related to the way in which TikTok creators consciously or unconsciously identify themselves with certain social classes, the mechanisms of spatiality of taste, the processes of commodification of life and the representation of everyday problems in what it means for them to “vivir en Guadalajara”.