Platform Mechanisms and the Democratic Public Sphere: A Scoping Review of TikTok

Ten years after its launch, TikTok has developed into a major platform for political communication. Its growing influence has raised concerns about democratic discourse and voter mobilization. Meanwhile, academic research on TikTok’s political impact remains fragmented. This paper presents a scoping re-view of empirical research in Information Systems and related disciplines on how the platform’s mechanisms shape democratic processes. Following PRISMA-ScR guidelines, we analyze 41 peer-reviewed articles published between 2020 and 2025. Grounded in deliberative democratic theory, our review indicates that TikTok shapes democratic processes across three levels: subjective epistemic processes, structural participation, and public deliberation. We identify platform mechanisms related to curation, creation, community, and control, and propose the 4C model as a conceptual framework for systematic analysis. We discuss methodological trends and identify research gaps. The paper contributes a com-prehensive overview of this emerging research field and outlines directions for future Information Systems research on platform-mediated democracies.