Participant Observation in Telegram Groups: Roadmap and a Case Study

This paper tries to 1) propose a framework for doing participant observation in Telegram groups and 2) reach a comprehensive perception of users’ actions in these groups based on a case study. While Telegram, as an Instant Messaging App is the most popular one in Iran, no researches have been done about it. Here, I try to prepare an appropriate background for future researches and at a same time study Iranian users’ behavior in this App. Selecting Mack et al. “What to observe” framework as a base, I make it suitable to apply on Telegram groups. To do that, I started using Telegram on November 2014 until March 2016. During this time I observed more than 196 unsystematical groups and on September 2015, selected 43 groups for further study, after that I choose 8 groups for systematic observation and analyzed them from September 26 to October 9, 2015. Finally I suggest the “What to observe” framework consisting of Appearance, Messages and Discussions, Members Roles, Personal Space and Group Traffic.