There has, in recent months, been a growing awareness that our society is sliding towards post-literacy. As others have noted, people are reading fewer books and more generally consuming less text. Now, the very fact you are reading this means you are likely not part of this trend – but you have probably spotted it around you. Online and beyond, the pivot to video has largely shifted our focus away from the written word. It is most pronounced among the young, but even older demographics are succumbing to short-form videos and the lure of their screens.
As Sam Freedman has noted, this has vast implications for our politics. It is the latest stage of the shift from physical to online media. Not just a change of platform, it also marks a shift in the tone and content of communications. It is easily decried – but hard to beat. Yes, the TikTok feed or Instagram Reels might be the equivalent of the depth or nuance of long articles, but they are here to stay.
For politicians, this means they will have to learn to play the game. There is no point lamenting that a manifesto or think tank report is getting lost in a sea of short-form videos. You have to be where the eyeballs are. Just as politicians of the past adapted to the rise of the press, the TV sound bite, or the earlier iterations of social media, so too must they find their footing in this new frontier of communication. Failure to do so will only cede ground to the network of populists and bots that have already established a presence on the platforms.
The post-literate turn in our politics is best suited to this type of content. It favours the emotional rather than the explanatory, the instant rather than the slow. Politics there progresses on out-of-context clips rather than a tightly constructed narrative. It is a challenge to the existing ways that politicians connect with their voters. However, as the platforms grow and create a wider demand for this type of content, our politicians will have to learn how to take the fight on their own.
The first part of this is forming a deeper understanding of how they work and how to generate reach. In the 2000s and 2010s, our politicians adopted this approach for social media, but many cling to methods that have now been eclipsed. In the past, authenticity and organisation mattered. Voters could be bound into Facebook groups or Twitter followings, which guaranteed eyeballs. This created engaged audiences which could be addressed directly, and supplemented by ads and paid content which leveraged people’s locations and interests.
On Twitter in particular, the game has now changed. Post-Musk changes to the algorithm have reduced the impact of follower counts. They have also suppressed anything that draws attention away from the site. This matters for politicians who often try to draw attention to press releases or articles about themselves. Their reach is being severely limited, and their communication efforts are becoming ineffective. For instance, tweets from BBC Politics, which has more than a million followers, often receive fewer than 10,000 views – a number that is likely inflated by bots and optimistic engagement counting.
With TikTok, the algorithm is even more key. Part of the appeal to its users is the way having a base matters less than having something that spreads quickly. The algorithm behind the site promotes new content from new accounts as a way of keeping the buzz of the app alive. This makes it harder for established voices and “official” accounts to get their stuff seen. Mainstream politicians who aspire to make an impact cannot rely on their name and position doing it for them. They have to commit to understanding what makes waves within that world and create content accordingly. Videos of you wandering around the constituency that did well on community Facebook groups will get buried.
More challenging is understanding the types of content that do well in the post-literate sphere. The shift to the TikTokisation of politics is not just about new apps; it is about new ways of interacting with politics. The content you see there, or spread through Instagram and Facebook Reels, has its own vernacular, its own aesthetics, and its own culture. Often, this is intertwined with who gets their news or politics from those sources. The post-literate turn cannot really be separated from the broader mood in politics – one of detachment, cynicism and a hunt for authenticity.
As a result, the effective political content there is often not the slick and well-spun production we now expect elsewhere. Videos that do well often utilise a cheap feel that says “no one is paying to put this in front of you”. They are ring-light lite, festooned with basic graphics, and smattered with AI. Often, they employ automated voiceovers or actors of obviously low quality. This goes against the previous trend for social media of “make it look like TV or film”, towards a more sense of “make it look like an ordinary person made this”. Brands and advertisers have already started to copy these vibes; politicians will probably have to, too.
Perhaps even more fruitful will be broadening who makes and appears in political videos. For years, this has been centrally managed, driven by the party centres’ understanding of targeting and spend, and a controlled message discipline. This may no longer work. People, especially disillusioned voters getting their news from scrolling, are suspicious of politicians and parties. Savvy marketing might instead shift to cultivating more independent and unrecognised content creators who exude authenticity. This would need to comply with Electoral Commission rules – but the astroturfing is perhaps a way of breaking through.
In the US, this already appears to be happening. Instagram and TikTok hobbyists complaining about the impact of tariffs, for example, have had more impact than many of the responses pushed by the official channels of the Democratic Party. Trump’s 2024 success with younger voters appears partly driven by a network of influencers and content creators who are not instantly recognised as party figures but make supportive arguments in ways that resonate well on social media apps. Building similar networks of political, but not obviously partisan, accounts has also been a tactic employed by more malicious influence operations. Outsiders within their own party, like NY Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and aspiring congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, have built buzz with pithy short-form videos. Doing it with the right intentions could become a powerful move in modern political communications.
The post-literate world is coming, and it is bringing with it a new political grammar. Some political actors have taken to it instinctively. It drove the surge of Die Linke in Germany, while the Reform party mostly seems to be profiting here. The platforms suit these radicals, who thrive on the simple, emotive messages that short-form videos can convey quickly and spread widely. The mainstream will cede ground if they cannot do the same. Pushing out press releases or graphics to Facebook groups will not suffice as the world shifts more towards TikTok, Reels, and other forms of virtually wordless political infotainment.
Labour, Lib Dems, and the Tories need to adapt to this new world. They need to find ways to convey their brand and their policies where the voters are, just as they did with social media and TV before that. It doesn’t mean getting into the populist gutter, but it does mean thinking about what these platforms need, and how it differs from current political communication. They must master both the algorithm and the voice, likely by finding new ways to spread their message, which appear less official and less polished, and sell their pitch to a more sceptical, less engaged audience.
It might be cynical and simplistic, but that’s perhaps the name of the game now. Imagine, if you will, some pretty Labour activist extolling the virtues of immigration while applying her make-up - a video format that suggests such familiarity with the subject you don’t need to pay full attention. Or an AI voice-over clips of people working, explaining how an NI increase can stifle the job market. They might seem appalling to us wordy folk on Substack, but deploy the visual language of short form video in a way that could be highly effective.
Beyond that, regulators need to get engaged, too. UK electoral laws have lagged behind the rise in these new forms of communication. They are pamphlet-age rules in a world of apps. Much of what can happen on TikTok, like the lack of clarity of who is posting, goes against the spirit of our rules on political communications, but has little hope of enforcement. The major parties can, collaboratively, engage with this to produce fair and up-to-date regulations that accept, but police, the new post-literate politics.
Ultimately, the post-literate turn is not simply a communications problem for politics: it is a cultural one. If voters are increasingly consuming their politics as vibes, fragments, and memes, then our very sense of what it means to be “informed” is shifting. The danger is not just that parties fall behind, but that public debate itself becomes thinner, faster, and more volatile. A viral clip can tilt an argument more effectively than a policy paper ever could, yet it leaves little room for scrutiny or context.
That does not mean serious politics is doomed. Just as print adapted to radio, and radio to television, this too can be bridged. The question is whether Britain’s political class is willing to experiment, risk embarrassment, and learn fluency in a medium that resists their instincts for control. The choice is stark: either embrace the grammar of the new platforms, or retreat into irrelevance while populists and opportunists dominate the feeds. If the health of our democracy depends on informed consent, then the battle for attention on TikTok and its successors is not trivial – it is the frontline.
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