Reviewing Telegram Performance in 2018 December Events

The aim of this paper is, reviewing the role of media in directing and managing public opinion through the use of accurate and influential management and transforming it to an instrument of crisis control for calming the society. Amadnews, an active political and sensational channel in Telegram, is controlled outside of Iran. The members of this channel reached more than 211 thousand in July 2018 and this rising trend continued and in early December of 2018 passed 1.4 million users. During the disturbances of this month, Amadnews and other Telegram channels took the responsibility of organizing and launching street clashes. These channels directed the disorders of December of 2018 by instructing how to confront police forces, declaring the places of meetings, determining the slogans and timetable of the riots, and finally video coverage of events. Encouraging rioters to attack the banks and rob their money, disseminating fake news about Tehran and other cities and suggesting arm conflicts to perform Syrian and Libyan’s model in Iran are among other activities of these media. To analyze the data the researcher has used both quantitative and qualitative methods. The results show that Telegram acted as a strong accelerator in abnormal and especially critical situations to reduce the time between opposition and riot. It has also performed roles like leading, instruction, and psychological operation and so on.