Event-Driven and Structural Dynamics of Media Framing in Platform Politics: A Time-Series Analysis of South Korean News Coverage of TikTok (2020–2024)

This study examines the longitudinal evolution of media framing of TikTok in South Korean news coverage from 2020 to 2024. As a global digital platform increasingly embedded in geopolitical and regulatory controversies, TikTok provides an instructive case for understanding how media frames shift over time in response to external political pressures. Moving beyond static framing analyses and Western-centric perspectives, this study conceptualizes framing as a dynamic process shaped by both short-term events and longer-term structural change. Using 5660 TikTok-related news articles from the BIGKinds database, we apply large language model-assisted frame classification and construct a frame shift index (FSI) to measure temporal changes in dominant frames. Interrupted time series (ITS) analysis is employed to test short-term framing responses to discrete international political and policy events, while the Bai–Perron breakpoint test (BPT) is used to identify long-term structural breaks. The results show that significant frame shifts are closely associated with transnational policy disputes and international political conflicts. While ITS reveals clear event-driven short-term framing adjustments, BPT identifies a statistically significant structural breakpoint in late 2022, indicating a longer-term reorganization of media narratives under sustained geopolitical and regulatory pressures.