News loopholing: Telegram news as portable alternative media

Abstract

This paper deals with foreign state-run media outlets that disseminate Persian language news targeted to the Iranian public. More specifically, it focuses on the mobile news app Telegram by undertaking a content analysis of a sample of the top 400 most viewed stories across four channels, i.e., BBC Persian, Voice of America’s Persian language service VOA Farsi, Radio Farda, and Iran International television channel. It also offers a topic modelling of all news stories posted. Results show that most of the news coverage centered on politics, particularly with an emphasis on internal Iranian issues, while a few other channels repeatedly urged their followers to submit not only their email addresses and other private information, but also photographs and/or videos of anti-government protests. Conceptually, I consider these channels as portable alternative media, as opposed to state-run news media, since the Iranian public seeks them out as sources of political information that assist them in better understanding world news and, most importantly, news about their own country. The Telegram instant messaging app is related to the meso dimension of alternative media, meaning that it is characterized by the unique production and dissemination means it utilizes. This paper concludes by highlighting the implications of foreign state-run news outlets using news loopholing to disseminate information, while simultaneously collecting private information about their users and/or potentially risking their safety.

Hate Influencers’ Mediation of Hate on Telegram: “We Declare War Against the Anti-White System”

“…Digital platforms have further transformed this public sphere, creating a new realm for social life (Shehabat et al, 2017, p. 30). Al-Rawi (2022) extended Gitlin’s concept of public sphericules to situate mobile applications as portable public spheres. To deal with the radical transition of the public sphere into digital domains, Krieger and Bellinger (2014, p. 13) propose “a social operating system ” as a way to build, maintain, and transform networks outside the orders of algorithmic rationality.…”

“…Our mobile mobilization concept derives from the theoretical frameworks of “portable public spheres” (Al-Rawi, 2022) and socio-spheres (Krieger & Bellinger, 2014), focusing on the ecosystem that far-right hate groups engage with that largely reinforces their antagonistic worldviews. To situate the far-right portable public sphere within the broader context, it is relevant to refer to Gitlin’s (1998) concept of the “public sphericules” since the utopian notion of the public sphere is in reality highly fragmented.…”

“…To situate the far-right portable public sphere within the broader context, it is relevant to refer to Gitlin’s (1998) concept of the “public sphericules” since the utopian notion of the public sphere is in reality highly fragmented. We argue that Telegram channels that host far-right content assist in producing and sustaining portable public spheres (Al-Rawi, 2022). At the Capitol attack, most rioters used mobile phones to film and document their violence, share, and exchange information, and get updated news, illustrating how mixed reality is a fixture of the mobile socio-sphere.…”