Screenshot News Within Italian Fringe Telegram Channels

In the context of a fragmented and hybrid digital public sphere, Telegram has emerged as a paradigmatic fringe platform that hosts alternative epistemic communities operating at the margins of mainstream legitimacy. This article investigates the role of screenshots within Italian anti-mainstream Telegram channels, focusing on how these visual artifacts are mobilized to perform three interconnected functions: witnessing, amplifying, and proving. Through a qualitative methodology combining digital ethnography and thematic visual content analysis, the study analyzes a year of content shared in public Telegram channels linked to conspiratorial, anti-vaccine, and pro-Russian narratives. Findings show that screenshots operate as infrastructural tools of evidence-making and narrative alignment, anchoring oppositional readings of mainstream content and enabling affective forms of truth production. Two rhetorical figures emerge from the analysis: the watchdog, who surveils and exposes institutional actors and the investigative reporter, who frames screenshotting as an act of epistemic labor and populist expertise. By examining the sociotechnical affordances and symbolic uses of screenshots, this article conceptualizes ‘‘screenshot news’’ as a vernacular mode of knowledge production and dissemination that challenges traditional regimes of credibility, visibility, and authority. The study contributes to the understanding of fringe communication practices and the visual politics of truth in post-platformized media ecologies.