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Ehsan Dehghan

@essideh.com
198 followers 165 following 79 posts

Academic @QUT; Researching various things, all related to antagonism/agonism/discourse online 🌐: www.essideh.com

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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 22/09/2026
I had a great chat about the discursive-digital link with @petecant.bsky.social. The podcast episode is now on the New Books Network.
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QUT Digital Media Research Centre @qutdmrc.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Our latest episode of the Read Them Sideways podcast is a discussion between postdoctoral research fellow, Phoebe Matich and host Sebastian Svegaard. They chat about Phoebe's recently completed PhD, with a focus on misinformation and truth claims in Australian journalism.
open.spotify.com
Journalism, Misinformation and Truth Claims w/ Phoebe Matich (#44)
Read Them Sideways · Episode
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Caroline Difficult Gardam @cazuarina.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
I could not make it to march yesterday in support of protestors in Iran, so I listened to this podcast again. And I really recommend it.
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Ned Watt @nedwatt.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Hey BlueSky, most of you have access to internet connectivity that the people of Iran currently do not. Do me a favour and share this podcast episode from the DMRC Digital Publics group. We can no longer accept catastrophic silence. Solidarity means paying attention and creating visibility
podcasts.apple.com
The Iranian digital blackout, and how you can help (#37)
Podcast Episode · Read Them Sideways · 02/02/2026 · 53m
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 02/02/2026
I had a chat with @pardisyarahmadi.bsky.social about the situation in Iran, and the horrors hidden behind and by the digital blackout. If you'd like to know more about the context and how you can help, have a listen.
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Sebastian F. K. Svegaard 🏳️‍🌈 @svegaard.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
What is happening in Iran is horrifying. And the silence is deafening. The people of Iran deserve to have their fight and plight seen and heard - at the very least.
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 10/12/2025
The social media age ban started today. Hear more about what it means for the younger ones, where it all started, and where it may take us in the future, from the DMRC director @antmandan.bsky.social:
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 08/12/2025
Oh wow! Watching it in a cinema is certainly something I would never forget! The most moving quote for me is the "Mathilda, why are you doing this to me?"... (man, I need to watch it again!)
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 08/12/2025
I'm embarrassed to even try to count how many times I've watched it!
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 08/12/2025
Well the Matrix would certainly be there in the list, but this one has a special place for me
media.tenor.com
a man leaning against a wall with his head resting on his hand
ALT: a man leaning against a wall with his head resting on his hand
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QUT Digital Media Research Centre @qutdmrc.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
PhD researcher Kate FitzGerald has a new article out in The Conversation today looking at generative AI chatbots and conspiracy theories.
theconversation.com
AI chatbots are encouraging conspiracy theories – new research
If you interact with chatbots about conspiracy theories, research shows you can can easily fall down the rabbit hole.
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 19/11/2025
Looking forward to kicking this project off with a dream team!
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Axel Bruns @snurb.info · 16/10/2025
Hey #AoIR2025 participants, the upcoming @qutdmrc.bsky.social Summer School will be highly relevant to many of you:
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 27/09/2025
It's great! I played the browser version. I'll play more on the desktop app soon. A Steam release sounds exciting!
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 27/09/2025
I was just playing this! Amazing game. I didn't expect it to be this fast paced!
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florian-toepfl.bsky.social @florian-toepfl.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
A highly recommended read: policyreview.info/articles/ana...
policyreview.info
Facebook, the EU and Russia’s war: Challenges of moderating authoritarian news
Despite several measures to curb their visibility, this study shows how Facebook mediates predominantly Russian state-aligned news during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 15/09/2025
I had a lot of fun chatting with Klaus (@klaus.bsky.social) about The Discursive-Digital Link. You can listen to the episode on the Read Them Sideways podcast.
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Brendan Keogh @brkeogh.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT! @mahliann.bsky.social, @marcuscarter.com, and myself have combined our collective brains and written a wide-reaching introduction to the complex and interdisciplinary field of Game Studies in this forthcoming book for Polity. www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 13/08/2025
Thanks Axel!
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
Thanks Eddy!
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
Thanks Johan!
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
And Majid KhosraviNik @mkhosravinik.bsky.social says it provides "an integrative understanding of meaning-making in online spaces".
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
Nico Carpentier @nicocarpentier.bsky.social calls it "a much needed contribution to strengthening democracy".
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
Johan Farkas @jfarkas.bsky.social sees it as "a much needed counterpoint to deterministic narratives around digital media".
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
David Howarth views it as "an urgent, compelling, and original intervention".
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
Natalie Fenton calls it "though-provoking and challenging", and "written with an urgent elegance".
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
I am humbled by the generosity of the first readers and endorsers of The Discursive-Digital Link, who dedicated their time to critically engage with the book and share their thoughts and kind words.
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
In the Discursive-Digital Link, I develop a social ontology that engages with the entanglement of discourse, digital media, and structure. I also present a methodology to critically study these discursive-digital entanglements. Here's a sneak peak of the metaphoric representation of the framework:
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
"We are in deep shit, literally and figuratively". That's the first sentence of the book, and it's not hyperbole. Democracy is under threat. The world is in crisis mode, and there is a multitude of entangled components involved. We need new frameworks to understand the how and the why of it all.
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 12/08/2025
Very excited to share that my book, The Discursive-Digital Link, is now available for pre-order on Routledge: tinyurl.com/the-ddl. The e-book is already available to order with a 30% discount! You can also read the synopsis and the Introduction chapter on my website: essideh.com/ddl/ (thread)
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Silvia Montaña @silmonn.bsky.social · 24/05/2025
On May 28, I'll be the keynote speaker at the Inaugural conference of Congreso H (Hermes) in Spain, online edition. I'll talk about the reinvention of journalistic verifiability across platforms and AI ecosystems. My first time presenting my research in Spanish! www.congresoh.com/schedule/con...
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 13/05/2025
Brilliant comments/thread! Very well put, Tim
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Kateryna Kasianenko @kkasianenko.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Made it to my final seminar (thesis pre-defence) today - thanks to the efforts and support of my supervisors, research participants, and many others.
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Axel Bruns @snurb.info · 12/05/2025
Wonderful to see another excellent @qutdmrc.bsky.social PhD student reach her final seminar milestone – @kkasianenko.bsky.social with a thesis on cosmopolitan responses to the Russian war on Ukraine. 🇺🇦 🫶
Kateryna Kasianenko presenting her opening slide.
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Fabio Giglietto @fabiogiglietto.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Serving on the PhD admission committee this year. We're offering two scholarships in Digital Culture and Communication—one specifically for international candidates. Know talented candidates passionate about digital culture? Send them our way! Details: www.uniurb.it/concorsi/9085
uniurb.it
Abbiamo pubblicato un nuovo bando nella sezione PhD - Dottorati di Ricerca / SU. Per informazioni, clicca qui.
Avviso pubblicato il giorno 8/5/2025 con scadenza 10/6/2025
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Polity @politybooks.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
"At the root of our problems with social media is... a mistake: that we delegated to profit-seeking businesses what I call “the space of the world”." Read @couldrynick.bsky.social s piece for @lsereviewofbooks.bsky.social blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities...
blogs.lse.ac.uk
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Axel Bruns @snurb.info · 30/04/2025
🗽 Big day for new publications: the special issue of _Comunicazione Politica_ that @gboccia.bsky.social, @essideh.com, Laura Iannelli, and I edited has now come out, and includes our introduction on Fringe Democracy and the Platformisation of the Public Sphere. www.rivisteweb.it/do...
Giovanni Boccia Artieri, Axel Bruns, Ehsan Dehghan, Laura Iannelli  

Fringe Democracy and the Platformization of the Public Sphere 

ABSTRACT
This article introduces the concept of «fringe democracy» as a multidimensional phenomenon emerging in the contemporary public sphere when alternative digital platforms (spaces/affordances/governance patterns), marginalized actors (groups/practices/ideologies), and heterodox narratives (contents/imaginaries/representations) challenge liberal democratic processes. Fringe democracy is not merely about the rise of non-mainstream platforms but arises from complex interactions between fringe and mainstream platforms, actors, and narratives (as shown by recent changes in mainstream platform moderation practices, which reduce fringe actors’ dependence on alternative, freer spaces). While some marginalized actors may propose heterodox narratives driven by democratic values, fringe democracy functions as a form of pseudo-democracy from the margins, [...]
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Jean Burgess @jeanburgess.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
Remember when social media was sometimes good, thanks to users and what they built? We do! Please check out this 'minor history' of Twttr and its community-created bots from @domcarlon.bsky.social @kkasianenko.bsky.social & me, out now in Convergence journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
The lives and afterlives of community-created bots on Twitter: A minor history - Dominique Carlon, Jean Burgess, Kateryna Kasianenko, 2025
This article presents a minor history of the beneficial community-created bots that once flourished on Twitter, showcasing their important but overlooked role i...
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Axel Bruns @snurb.info · 25/04/2025
💡 NEW ARTICLE ALERT 💡 My article with @qutdmrc.bsky.social colleagues @kkasianenko.bsky.social, @vishneww.bsky.social, @essideh.com, and @voddenlaura.bsky.social is now out in Social Media + Society. We introduce a new analytics method: #PracticeMapping. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Untangling the Furball: A Practice Mapping Approach to the Analysis of Multimodal Interactions in Social Networks - Axel Bruns, Kateryna Kasianenko, Vish Padinjaredath Suresh, Ehsan Dehghan, Laura Vod...
This article introduces the analytical approach of practice mapping, using vector embeddings of network actions and interactions to map commonalities and disjun...
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Johan Farkas @jfarkas.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
"It is not about whether such technology will be good or bad for society... those who control the production and use of information technology will shape it in ways that are good for some and destructive for others" (Mosco, 1982, p. 8)
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Nadia Jude @nadiajude.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Our @techpolicypress.bsky.social article is based on our recent paper examining Community Notes through the lens of humour. We find that CN enacts a narrow conception of disinformation that is ill-equipped to address hate and harm. eprints.qut.edu.au/254907/1/Mat...
Our research reveals a fundamental issue with the ‘community notes’ model as a preferred content moderation system: it is oriented toward addressing an outdated and extremely narrow understanding of disinformation, one that views falsity and fakeness as the problem alone, ignoring the historical, social, cultural, economic and political nature of disinformation. By examining the tool through the lens of humor, we show how the system fails to assess the harms or ‘check-worthiness’ of false narratives. This problem is a skill expert fact-checkers are trained to address, making Community Notes a poor substitute for culturally informed content moderation performed by a combination of experts, AI, and crowd workers situated in place and time.
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Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández @ariadnamf.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Our piece on Community Notes and its narrow understanding of the disinformation problem is now live on @techpolicypress.bsky.social. It is based on our paper on the topic, which can be found here: eprints.qut.edu.au/254907/1/Mat...
eprints.qut.edu.au
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Edward Hurcombe @eddyhurc.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Our article 'The discursive function of the Meta Newsroom' is out! In it, me, @essideh.com, @voddenlaura.bsky.social, and @antmandan.bsky.social examine how Meta's blog framed issues to do with mis/disinfo, hate speech, etc on Meta platforms during 2016-2021. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 03/02/2025
(3/3) This, as we show using Meta's newsroom as an example, has significant implications for policy. In light of recent developments in Meta, and how they used the news room to frame them, this article is even more timely and important than we imagined when we started the project.
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 03/02/2025
(2/3) That is, only parts of a problem (existing or imaginary) that the platform thinks they can 'solve' using their technological arsenal are cherry-picked, and the whole problem is then re-framed via the newsroom. The more real and pressing problems, though, are often kept out of the frame.
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 03/02/2025
(1/3) Platform news rooms, prima facie, are spaces where they tell the world what they're doing or plan to do. However, ultima facie, they are far more than that. They set the boundaries of the discursive by defining the problems constrained to (often limited) solutions.
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Ehsan Dehghan @essideh.com · 03/02/2025
🚨🚨 New publication with @eddyhurc.bsky.social, @antmandan.bsky.social, and @voddenlaura.bsky.social: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... (thread below)
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Timothy Graham @timothyjgraham.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Pre-orders are now open for AGE OF DOUBT. Edited by Tracey Kirkland and Gavin Fang, this book is a collection of essays by global experts on trust in the world today. My essay looks at bots and moral panic as we hurtle into the future of Generative AI. publishing.monash.edu/product/age-...
publishing.monash.edu
Age of Doubt - Monash University Publishing
Today, trust seems harder to find than ever before. It's hardly surprising we feel that way. Our politics is polarised, our online world is awash with misinformation, and we’ve lost faith in our bedro...
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Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández @ariadnamf.bsky.social · 19/01/2025
Amidst Meta's content moderation changes, @nadiajude.bsky.social and I have a new paper in press on how the 'Community Notes' model corrects narrow understandings of the disinformation problem eprints.qut.edu.au/254907/1/Mat... We're also preparing a piece for Tech Policy Press that we'll share soon
eprints.qut.edu.au
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Silvia Montaña @silmonn.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Some reflections with colleagues @nedwatt.bsky.social and @riedlinm.bsky.social at @theconvo-bot.bsky.social on Meta's decision to end its professionally funded fact-checking model in its platforms and adopt the X crowdsourcing model with a new 'community notes'👇 theconversation.com/meta-is-aban...
theconversation.com
Meta is abandoning fact checking – this doesn’t bode well for the fight against misinformation
Numerous studies have shown that fact checking has helped reduce the spread of misinformation and disinformation online.
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