Publishers are being urged to let individual journalists build their own identities, rather than the corporate brands of the titles they work for, to attract younger audiences on social media platforms like TikTok.

A new study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford has looked into the Chinese-owned video hosting service’s relationship with journalism and how it can be best utilised by publishers.

Researchers interviewed people working in newsrooms around the world for the project including staff at The News Movement, a social media-first news service in which UK regional publisher National World bought a US$1.25m stake last month in a bid to attract a younger audience to its titles.

The News Movement, which has 63,000 followers on TikTok, told the Reuters Institute it “is still learning what works but says that young people identify more with personalities than they do with brands”.

Head of audience Valentina Park, pictured, said: “It’s why TikTok allows creators and news organisations like us that are fresh to the scene to have resonance.

“The way that authenticity comes through is through our journalists, not necessarily through an opaque brand.”

The research found 81pc of UK news organisations currently have some presence on TikTok.

But, in a report of the study’s findings, Reuters Institute senior research associate Nic Newman questioned whether publishers would be able to monetise TikTok, or similar platforms, in the near future.

Wrote Nic: “Commercial publishers would like to find ways to be compensated for the value they provide to the platform.

“This could be direct payments or access to the creator fund that allocates money for popular posts.

“Short videos do not lend themselves to interruptive advertising, but publishers would like the ability to put onward links to websites or apps, which is currently very limited, 20 where traffic can be monetised via advertising or subscription.

“These links would also make sponsored posts more viable as it would provide a way for advertisers to track further interest.”

“It is still relatively early days and platform features are constantly changing. TikTok has raised the maximum length of videos to ten minutes and is pushing longer live streams.

“It is also trialling a subscription model, similar to Amazon’s live-streaming platform, Twitch, in which fans pay to gain better access to a creator’s channel.

“These approaches may open up more monetisation options in the future but are mainly aimed at incentivising creators.

“Until there is a clearer monetisation path for publishers, investments are likely to be constrained.”