The affective pressures of WhatsApp: from safe spaces to conspiratorial publics

ABSTRACT

In this paper we bring together media logics, affordances and affect theory to ask how conspiracy theory moves through WhatsApp groups and moves people through their encounters with these contents towards ‘conspiracy thinking’. Firstly, we draw upon media logic theory to examine the extent to which WhatsApp’s architecture, design and technical functions ‘steer’ users’ towards particular communication and behaviours. Second, we use affordance theory to examine how communities incorporate platform affordances into their tactics to resist, subvert or circumvent institutional power. Finally, we use theories of affect to understand whether the shared emotions and intensities that arise through encounters between digital environments and bodies of users drive experiences that bypass human cognition and representation to create ‘affective atmospheres’. We apply this integrated framework to ask whether WhatsApp’s closed infrastructure, end-to-end encryption and social features such as ‘Groups’ and the ‘forward’ button – with the embodied practices of users – shape affective environments which normalize conspiracy thinking.

KEYWORDS:

• WhatsApp
• Telegram
• safe spaces
• conspiracy thinking
• affect
• media logics
• affordances

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge Deakin University, who provided seed funding for the project, our informants and the organizations who assisted with recruitment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

The present affiliation of Niki Cheong is Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

^1. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender. This was the most commonly used terminology among participants.

^2. ‘dark social’ refers to social traffic or shares that do not contain information referring back to a source, and can’t be traced. So, unlike shares from social media platforms, dark social refers to sharing of contents through private channels, like email, SMS and messaging platforms.