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Telegram: Data Collection, Opportunities and Challenges

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Information Management and Big Data (SIMBig 2020)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1410))

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Abstract

Over the years, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., have become a valuable resource for marketing, public relations etc. One emerging mobile instant messaging medium, Telegram, has recently gained momentum in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. While most social media platforms have been studied extensively, Telegram is still underexplored and a gold mine for researchers and social scientists to explore and study user behaviors. Moreover, the ease of data collection through its API and access to historical data makes it a lucrative platform for social computing research. This paper explores the features of Telegram and presents a methodology to collect and analyze data. We also demonstrate the viability of the platform as a source of social computing research by presenting a case study on Ukrainian Parliamentary members’ discourse. We conduct both text and network analysis to gain insights into political discourse and public opinion. Our findings include use of Telegram by Ukrainian politicians to connect with their voter base, promote their work as well as ridicule their peers. As a result, channels are actively disseminating information on current political affairs and chat groups that discuss views on Ukrainian government. From our study, we conclude that Telegram is a rich data source to study social behavior, analyze information campaigns through content dissemination, etc. This study opens plethora of research opportunities in future on Telegram.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/telegram.org.

  2. 2.

    https://core.telegram.org/api/obtaining_api_id.

  3. 3.

    https://urlextract.readthedocs.io/en/latest/urlextract.html.

  4. 4.

    Data and the code are available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This research is funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation (OIA-1946391, OIA-1920920, IIS-1636933, ACI-1429160, and IIS-1110868), U.S. Office of Naval Research (N00014-10-1-0091, N00014-14-1-0489, N00014-15-P-1187, N00014-16-1-2016, N00014-16-1-2412, N00014-17-1-2675, N00014-17-1-2605, N68335-19-C-0359, N00014-19-1-2336, N68335-20-C-0540), U.S. Air Force Research Lab, U.S. Army Research Office (W911NF-17-S-0002, W911NF-16-1-0189), U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (W31P4Q-17-C-0059), Arkansas Research Alliance, the Jerry L. Maulden/Entergy Endowment at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and the Australian Department of Defense Strategic Policy Grants Program (SPGP) (award number: 2020-106-094). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding organizations. The researchers gratefully acknowledge the support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Arkansas At Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, 72204, USA

    Tuja Khaund, Muhammad Nihal Hussain, Mainuddin Shaik & Nitin Agarwal

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  1. Tuja Khaund
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  2. Muhammad Nihal Hussain
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  3. Mainuddin Shaik
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  4. Nitin Agarwal
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Correspondence to Tuja Khaund , Muhammad Nihal Hussain , Mainuddin Shaik or Nitin Agarwal .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Juan Antonio Lossio-Ventura

  2. Visibilia, São Paulo, Brazil

    Jorge Carlos Valverde-Rebaza

  3. University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Eduardo Díaz

  4. Universidad del Pacífico, Lima, Peru

    Hugo Alatrista-Salas

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Khaund, T., Hussain, M.N., Shaik, M., Agarwal, N. (2021). Telegram: Data Collection, Opportunities and Challenges. In: Lossio-Ventura, J.A., Valverde-Rebaza, J.C., Díaz, E., Alatrista-Salas, H. (eds) Information Management and Big Data. SIMBig 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1410. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76228-5_37

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76228-5_37

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