A Sociological Analysis on the Role of Telegram as a Public Sphere on the Tenth Parliamentary Election: The Case Study of Tehran

Public sphere is part of social life that enables people to come together, discuss freely their social problems and play effectively political actions. The modern communication technologies such as social media have extended public sphere that play positive impacts on communicative action and rationality. One of the most important types of political actions is political participation through voting behavior. This study employs the method of qualitative content analysis on Telegram channels. The results of this study show that the social media of Telegram could enhance people’s political public sphere, leading to a significant impact on their political participation and voting behavior during the tenth parliamentary election in Tehran.