Weaponizing Soft Power: The Israeli Army's Use of TikTok

Abstract

This article analyzes how the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) use TikTok's platform-specific aesthetics, affective dynamics, and algorithmic visibility to construct state legitimacy in the context of ongoing geopolitical conflict. Through content analysis of all 750 videos published between September 2020 and March 2025, the research reveals how the military integrates short-form visual styles with emotionally charged messaging centered on themes such as hope, threat, and national mourning to produce curated narratives. Platform-native elements like music, hashtags, and meme-driven trends function not only to enhance engagement but also as tools of symbolic warfare and selective representation. The videos, categorized by format, emotional tone, spokesperson identity, and demographic portrayal, revealed a strategically consistent narrative that emphasized Israeli heroism, resilience, and collective mourning, while omitting representations of Palestinian civilian suffering in a manner aligned with the communicative logic of military public diplomacy. This study contributes to digital militarism and soft power literature by illustrating how military institutions adapt to media ecosystems where visibility and emotion are strategic resources. In particular, it demonstrates how the IDF deploys personalization, storytelling, and cultural commemorations as platform-native soft power strategies, reconfiguring military communication into forms of emotional diplomacy tailored to TikTok's algorithmic logics.