Research Article
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Telegramming News: How have Telegram channels transformed journalism in Iran?

Year 2018, Issue: 31, 168 - 187, 30.12.2018
https://doi.org/10.17829/turcom.423307

Abstract








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. 




References

  • Al-Rawi, Ahmed. 2017. “News Values on Social Media: News Organizations’ Facebook Use.” Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 18 (7): 871–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884916636142.
  • Barnard, Stephen R. 2016. “‘Tweet or Be Sacked’: Twitter and the New Elements of Journalistic Practice.” Journalism 17 (2): 190–207. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884914553079.
  • Bednarek, Monika, and Helen Caple. 2014. “Why Do News Values Matter? Towards a New Methodological Framework for Analysing News Discourse in Critical Discourse Analysis and beyond.” Discourse & Society 25 (2): 135–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926513516041.
  • Blaagaard, Bolette B. 2013. “Shifting Boundaries: Objectivity, Citizen Journalism and Tomorrow’s Journalists.” Journalism 14 (8): 1076–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884912469081.
  • Bossio, Diana, and Saba Bebawi. 2016. “Mapping the Emergence of Social Media in Everyday Journalistic Practices.” Media International Australia 161 (1): 147–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X16665494.
  • Boyd, D. 2010. “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications.” In Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites, edited by Z. Papacharissi, 39–58. London: Routledge.
  • Brian, Carroll. 2014. Writing and Editing for Digital Media. 2nded. New York ; London: Routledge.
  • Broersma, Marcel, and Todd Graham. 2013. “Twitter as a News Source How Dutch and British Newspapers Used Tweets in Their News Coverage, 2007-2011.” Journalism Practice 7 (4): 446–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2013.802481.
  • Brooks, Brian S., George Kennedy, Daryl R. Moen, and Don Ranly. 2014. News Reporting and Writing. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
  • Bruns, Axel, and Tim Highfield. 2012. “Blogs, Twitter, and Breaking News : The Produsage of Citizen Journalism.” Produsing Theory in a Digital World : The Intersection of Audiences and Production in Contemporary Theory 30: 15–32.
  • Duffy, Matt J. 2011. “Networked Journalism and Al-Jazeera English: How the Middle East Network Engages the Audience to Help Produce News.” Journal of Middle East Media 7/1: 23.
  • English, Peter. 2016. “Twitter’s Diffusion in Sports Journalism: Role Models, Laggards and Followers of the Social Media Innovation.” New Media & Society 18 (3): 484–501. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814544886.
  • Galtung, Johan, and Mari Holmboe Ruge. 1965. “The Structure of Foreign News.” Journal of Peace Research 2 (1): 64–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/002234336500200104.
  • Gans, Herbert J. 2004. Deciding What’s News. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.
  • Gearhart, Sherice, and Seok Kang. 2014. “Social Media in Television News.” Electronic News 8 (4): 243–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/1931243114567565.
  • Hanitzsch, Thomas, and Tim P Vos. 2016. “Journalism beyond Democracy: A New Look into Journalistic Roles in Political and Everyday Life.” Journalism, 146488491667338. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884916673386.
  • Harcup, Tony, and Deirdre O’Neill. 2001. “What Is News? Galtung and Ruge Revisited.” Journalism Studies 2 (2): 261–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616700120042114.
  • Harcup, Tony, and Deirdre O’Neill. 2017. “What Is News?: News Values Revisited (Again).” Journalism Studies 18 (12): 1470–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1150193.
  • Hermida, Alfred. 2010. “TWITTERING THE NEWS: The Emergence of Ambient Journalism.” Journalism Practice 4 (3): 297–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512781003640703.———. 2013. “#JOURNALISM: Reconfiguring Journalism Research about Twitter, One Tweet at a Time.” Digital Journalism 1 (3): 295–313. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2013.808456.
  • Hermida, Alfred, Fred Fletcher, Darryl Korell, and Donna Logan. 2012. “SHARE, LIKE, RECOMMEND.” Journalism Studies 13 (5–6): 815–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2012.664430.
  • Hermida, Alfred, Seth C. Lewis, and Rodrigo Zamith. 2014. “Sourcing the Arab Spring: A Case Study of Andy Carvin’s Sources on Twitter during the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 19 (3): 479–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12074.
  • Jahng, Mi Rosie, and Jeremy Littau. 2016. “Interacting Is Believing: Interactivity, Social Cue, and Perceptions of Journalistic Credibility on Twitter.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 93 (1): 38–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699015606680.
  • Kaplan, Andreas M., and Michael Haenlein. 2010. “Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media.” Business Horizons 53 (1): 59–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003.
  • Kermani, Hossein. 2016. “Participant Observation in Telegram Groups: Roadmap and a Case Study.” The Journal of Culture- Communication Studies 17 (35): 53–79. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.22083/jccs.2016.42560.
  • Kershner, James W. 2008. The Elements of News Writing. Boston, MA: Pearson Education (US).Kheirabadi, Reza, and Ferdows Aghagolzadeh. 2012. “A Discoursive Review of Galtung and Ruge‟s News Factors in Iranian Newspapers.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 2 (5). https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.2.5.989-994.
  • Kovach, Bill, and Tom Rosenstiel. 2014. The Elements of Journalism. New York: Three Rivers Press.Lee, Jayeon. 2015. “The Double-Edged Sword: The Effects of Journalists’ Social Media Activities on Audience Perceptions of Journalists and Their News Products.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 20 (3): 312–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12113.
  • Majó-vázquez, Authors Sílvia, Jun Zhao, Jason R C Nurse, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2017. “Digital-Born and Legacy News Media on Twitter during the UK General Election.” Oxford.
  • McKane, Anna. 2006. News Writing. London: Sage.
  • McNair, Brian. 2009. News and Journalism in the UK. London: Routledge.
  • Molyneux, Logan. 2015. “What Journalists Retweet: Opinion, Humor, and Brand Development on Twitter.” Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 16 (7): 920–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884914550135.
  • Newman, Nic. 2009. “The Rise of Social Media and Its Impact on Mainstream Journalism.” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism 8 (September): 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/3.3.537-a.
  • Örnebring, Henrik. 2013. “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better? Professional Journalists on Citizen Journalism in Six European Countries.” International Communication Gazette 75 (1): 35–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048512461761.
  • Papacharissi, Zizi. 2014. Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004.
  • Ricketson, Matthew. 2004. Writing Feature Stories. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
  • Rudin, Richard, and Trevor Ibbotson. 2002. An Introduction to Journalism. London: Focal Press.Trilling, Damian, Petro Tolochko, and Björn Burscher. 2017. “From Newsworthiness to Shareworthiness.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 94 (1): 38–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699016654682.
  • Tuchman, Gaye. 1972. “Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen’s Notions of Objectivity.” American Journal of Sociology 77 (4): 660–79. https://doi.org/10.1086/225193.
  • Veenstra, Aaron S, Narayanan Iyer, Chang Sup Park, and Fawaz Alajmi. 2015. “Twitter as ‘a Journalistic Substitute’? Examining #wiunion Tweeters’ Behavior and Self-Perception.” Journalism 16 (4): 488–504. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884914521580.
  • Vis, Farida. 2013. “Twitter as a Reporting Tool for Breaking News: Journalists Tweeting the 2011 UK Riots.” Digital Journalism 1 (1): 27–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2012.741316.
  • Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin, and Thomas Hanitzsch. 2009. The Handbook of Journalism Studies. New York, NY: Routledge.

Telegramming News: How have Telegram channels transformed the journalism in Iran?

Year 2018, Issue: 31, 168 - 187, 30.12.2018
https://doi.org/10.17829/turcom.423307

Abstract








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. 




References

  • Al-Rawi, Ahmed. 2017. “News Values on Social Media: News Organizations’ Facebook Use.” Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 18 (7): 871–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884916636142.
  • Barnard, Stephen R. 2016. “‘Tweet or Be Sacked’: Twitter and the New Elements of Journalistic Practice.” Journalism 17 (2): 190–207. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884914553079.
  • Bednarek, Monika, and Helen Caple. 2014. “Why Do News Values Matter? Towards a New Methodological Framework for Analysing News Discourse in Critical Discourse Analysis and beyond.” Discourse & Society 25 (2): 135–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926513516041.
  • Blaagaard, Bolette B. 2013. “Shifting Boundaries: Objectivity, Citizen Journalism and Tomorrow’s Journalists.” Journalism 14 (8): 1076–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884912469081.
  • Bossio, Diana, and Saba Bebawi. 2016. “Mapping the Emergence of Social Media in Everyday Journalistic Practices.” Media International Australia 161 (1): 147–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X16665494.
  • Boyd, D. 2010. “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications.” In Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites, edited by Z. Papacharissi, 39–58. London: Routledge.
  • Brian, Carroll. 2014. Writing and Editing for Digital Media. 2nded. New York ; London: Routledge.
  • Broersma, Marcel, and Todd Graham. 2013. “Twitter as a News Source How Dutch and British Newspapers Used Tweets in Their News Coverage, 2007-2011.” Journalism Practice 7 (4): 446–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2013.802481.
  • Brooks, Brian S., George Kennedy, Daryl R. Moen, and Don Ranly. 2014. News Reporting and Writing. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
  • Bruns, Axel, and Tim Highfield. 2012. “Blogs, Twitter, and Breaking News : The Produsage of Citizen Journalism.” Produsing Theory in a Digital World : The Intersection of Audiences and Production in Contemporary Theory 30: 15–32.
  • Duffy, Matt J. 2011. “Networked Journalism and Al-Jazeera English: How the Middle East Network Engages the Audience to Help Produce News.” Journal of Middle East Media 7/1: 23.
  • English, Peter. 2016. “Twitter’s Diffusion in Sports Journalism: Role Models, Laggards and Followers of the Social Media Innovation.” New Media & Society 18 (3): 484–501. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814544886.
  • Galtung, Johan, and Mari Holmboe Ruge. 1965. “The Structure of Foreign News.” Journal of Peace Research 2 (1): 64–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/002234336500200104.
  • Gans, Herbert J. 2004. Deciding What’s News. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.
  • Gearhart, Sherice, and Seok Kang. 2014. “Social Media in Television News.” Electronic News 8 (4): 243–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/1931243114567565.
  • Hanitzsch, Thomas, and Tim P Vos. 2016. “Journalism beyond Democracy: A New Look into Journalistic Roles in Political and Everyday Life.” Journalism, 146488491667338. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884916673386.
  • Harcup, Tony, and Deirdre O’Neill. 2001. “What Is News? Galtung and Ruge Revisited.” Journalism Studies 2 (2): 261–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616700120042114.
  • Harcup, Tony, and Deirdre O’Neill. 2017. “What Is News?: News Values Revisited (Again).” Journalism Studies 18 (12): 1470–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1150193.
  • Hermida, Alfred. 2010. “TWITTERING THE NEWS: The Emergence of Ambient Journalism.” Journalism Practice 4 (3): 297–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512781003640703.———. 2013. “#JOURNALISM: Reconfiguring Journalism Research about Twitter, One Tweet at a Time.” Digital Journalism 1 (3): 295–313. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2013.808456.
  • Hermida, Alfred, Fred Fletcher, Darryl Korell, and Donna Logan. 2012. “SHARE, LIKE, RECOMMEND.” Journalism Studies 13 (5–6): 815–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2012.664430.
  • Hermida, Alfred, Seth C. Lewis, and Rodrigo Zamith. 2014. “Sourcing the Arab Spring: A Case Study of Andy Carvin’s Sources on Twitter during the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 19 (3): 479–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12074.
  • Jahng, Mi Rosie, and Jeremy Littau. 2016. “Interacting Is Believing: Interactivity, Social Cue, and Perceptions of Journalistic Credibility on Twitter.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 93 (1): 38–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699015606680.
  • Kaplan, Andreas M., and Michael Haenlein. 2010. “Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media.” Business Horizons 53 (1): 59–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003.
  • Kermani, Hossein. 2016. “Participant Observation in Telegram Groups: Roadmap and a Case Study.” The Journal of Culture- Communication Studies 17 (35): 53–79. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.22083/jccs.2016.42560.
  • Kershner, James W. 2008. The Elements of News Writing. Boston, MA: Pearson Education (US).Kheirabadi, Reza, and Ferdows Aghagolzadeh. 2012. “A Discoursive Review of Galtung and Ruge‟s News Factors in Iranian Newspapers.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 2 (5). https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.2.5.989-994.
  • Kovach, Bill, and Tom Rosenstiel. 2014. The Elements of Journalism. New York: Three Rivers Press.Lee, Jayeon. 2015. “The Double-Edged Sword: The Effects of Journalists’ Social Media Activities on Audience Perceptions of Journalists and Their News Products.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 20 (3): 312–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12113.
  • Majó-vázquez, Authors Sílvia, Jun Zhao, Jason R C Nurse, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2017. “Digital-Born and Legacy News Media on Twitter during the UK General Election.” Oxford.
  • McKane, Anna. 2006. News Writing. London: Sage.
  • McNair, Brian. 2009. News and Journalism in the UK. London: Routledge.
  • Molyneux, Logan. 2015. “What Journalists Retweet: Opinion, Humor, and Brand Development on Twitter.” Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 16 (7): 920–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884914550135.
  • Newman, Nic. 2009. “The Rise of Social Media and Its Impact on Mainstream Journalism.” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism 8 (September): 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/3.3.537-a.
  • Örnebring, Henrik. 2013. “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better? Professional Journalists on Citizen Journalism in Six European Countries.” International Communication Gazette 75 (1): 35–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048512461761.
  • Papacharissi, Zizi. 2014. Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004.
  • Ricketson, Matthew. 2004. Writing Feature Stories. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
  • Rudin, Richard, and Trevor Ibbotson. 2002. An Introduction to Journalism. London: Focal Press.Trilling, Damian, Petro Tolochko, and Björn Burscher. 2017. “From Newsworthiness to Shareworthiness.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 94 (1): 38–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699016654682.
  • Tuchman, Gaye. 1972. “Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen’s Notions of Objectivity.” American Journal of Sociology 77 (4): 660–79. https://doi.org/10.1086/225193.
  • Veenstra, Aaron S, Narayanan Iyer, Chang Sup Park, and Fawaz Alajmi. 2015. “Twitter as ‘a Journalistic Substitute’? Examining #wiunion Tweeters’ Behavior and Self-Perception.” Journalism 16 (4): 488–504. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884914521580.
  • Vis, Farida. 2013. “Twitter as a Reporting Tool for Breaking News: Journalists Tweeting the 2011 UK Riots.” Digital Journalism 1 (1): 27–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2012.741316.
  • Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin, and Thomas Hanitzsch. 2009. The Handbook of Journalism Studies. New York, NY: Routledge.
There are 39 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Communication and Media Studies
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Hossein Kermani

Publication Date December 30, 2018
Submission Date May 14, 2018
Published in Issue Year 2018 Issue: 31

Cite

APA Kermani, H. (2018). Telegramming News: How have Telegram channels transformed journalism in Iran?. Türkiye İletişim Araştırmaları Dergisi(31), 168-187. https://doi.org/10.17829/turcom.423307