Cultural Adaptation Strategies in TikTok‘s Transnational Communication: A Case Study of Kazakhstan 
Ayan Maheshati

AL-FARABI KAZAKH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY，Almaty Kazakhstan，050040；

Abstract：This paper investigates the cultural adaptation strategies of TikTok in the Kazakhstani market, which has linguistic duality (Kazakh-Russian bilingualism), post-Soviet cultural hybridity, and rapid digitalisation. According to the combined findings of data from platform governance, influencer content and user behaviour, three main adaptation paths have been identified in this study: algorithm localisation that groups content in line with regional cultural characteristics; linguistically sensitive content moderation that considers local cultural sensitivities; and creator economy localisation that links the platform to the existing cultural creation network. Therefore, based on the above results, TikTok's success in Kazakhstan is due to strategic inconsistency: it has kept platform-wide technical standards but has also added local cultural features. This paper adds to the body of research on digitalisation in internationalisation by showing how cultural adaptation functions as a continuous negotiation among global platform logics and local sociolinguistic conditions.

Keywords: TikTok, cultural adaptation, Kazakhstan, digital platforms, code-switching, content moderation, creator economy

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