This paper investigates the structure of networked publics and their sharing practices in Persian Twitter during a period surrounding Iran’s 2017 presidential election. Building on networked gatekeeping and framing theories, we used a mixed methodological approach to analyze a dataset of 2,596,284 Persian tweets. Results revealed that Twitter provided a space for Iranians to discuss public topics. However, this space is not necessarily used by voiceless and marginalized groups; and the uses are not limited to discussing controversial issues. The growing body of conservative crowdsourced elites emerged to defend the regime’s ideology. Moreover, the dominant networked frames were shaped around normal and routine subjects in an election time. Thus, Twitter was not a platform for only seeking liberal demands. It was to some extent used to serve the regime’s political interests. Furthermore, while many ordinary users rose to prominence, mainstream media continued to act as powerful players. This study contributes to the existing literature into networked practices, digital democracy, and citizen journalism; particularly in restrictive contexts.

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Despite the growing body of literature on hashtag feminism in Western contexts, there is still a significant gap in our knowledge of the ways that feminist hashtag movements are developed in authoritarian societies. Moreover, we do not know much about the mechanisms by which a feminist hashtag movement is disrupted, particularly in non-democratic regimes. Drawing on and contributing to the hashtag feminism literature, we undertook a discursive approach to examine #rape on Persian Twitter to address these gaps. Findings showed that #rape was a space for Iranian users to share abusive experiences, but they went further to discuss barriers of disclosing sexual assault as well. Developing resistive strategies and raising awareness about other muted groups such as LGBTQIA+ were other discursive practices in articulating #rape. This article also pushes forward the existing literature on hashtag feminism by providing empirical analyses of the ways that a feminist movement is disrupted.

This paper investigates the most-viewed posts in Persian Telegram channels during the period surrounding Iran’s 2017 presidential election. Telegram has become the most popular social medium in Iran, and its channels have played a significant role in recent social and political events. Based on the produsage theory and user-generated content concept, this research identifies the popular content and produsagers on Persian Telegram channels. Moreover, this paper evaluates the potential of these most-viewed posts to support or challenge the dominant discourses in Iran. Using a combination of content and discourse analyses, results show that user-generated content on Telegram supports and reinforces dominant discourses relatively strongly, rather than challenging them. They also show that politics and entertainment were the most popular content on Telegram and confirm that Telegram is usually considered a good tool for receiving information and news.

This research tries to evaluate Telegram's effects on journalism and news writing in Iran. The emergence of social media has affected many social and political trends in societies, as well as journalism practices and procedures. Telegram, as the most popular social media in Iran, hypothetically has the power to do so. Moreover, there are numerous channels on Telegram which publish news posts daily. Therefore, I tried to explore how these channels impact journalism in Iran. Doing so, I analyzed how the structure of news is transformed by the emergence of new forms of news writing and the disappearance of traditional standards. Furthermore, I probed the news values on Telegram channels to find out how a piece of writing becomes a news in this new space. Finally, I studied how objectivity was treated by Telegram channels, to provide a comprehensive interpretation of news on Telegram. A wide range of textual methods (both quantitative and qualitative content analyses and discourse analysis) were employed to analyze the most viewed posts on Telegram channels during Iran's 2017 presidential election period. As a result, 620 posts in 31 days were gathered and analyzed. The results showed that the news structure has changed more than the ways that channels use news values. In fact, the old standards of news writing are abandoned and new forms, such as screenshots, have emerged. Moreover, prominence is the most favorable news value on these channels; while relevance and magnitude are of least interest. Finally, findings revealed that the majority of news posts are objective.