Messaging Dissent: WhatsApp as Alternative Media in Times of Protest—The Case of “Tikva”

This article examines the utilization of WhatsApp as an alternative communication tool for disseminating visual content among social activists during protests. While WhatsApp is typically conceptualized as an interpersonal or group messaging platform, research on its role as an infrastructure for alternative media and citizen journalism remains limited. The study focuses on the “Tikva” group, established at the onset of the public struggle against the 2023 judicial reform in Israel, which evolved into a nine-month mass protest movement described as one of the largest in the country’s history. Through qualitative thematic content analysis of videos distributed within the group, the article explores how WhatsApp functions simultaneously as a channel for digital activism and as a site of bottom-up, democratic, non-institutional news production. The findings indicate two primary trends: functionally, WhatsApp operates as a mechanism for resource mobilization, calls to action in physical and digital spaces, and the cultivation of belonging and solidarity among activists facing institutional power; in terms of content and production, the videos articulate an anti-hegemonic discourse and challenge mainstream media conventions. The analysis shows how these videos dismantle delegitimizing frames and construct a counter-narrative depicting protesters as citizens defending democracy, thereby sustaining the protest movement’s momentum.