PLATFORM AFFORDANCES AND CONFLICT NARRATIVES: A DISCOURSE-HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF U.S.-IRAN CONFLICT FRAMING ACROSS X, TIKTOK, AND YOUTUBE

Abstract

In 2026, the conflict between the United States and Iran expanded beyond diplomatic and maritime communications to social media platforms, each creating a different public narrative of the confrontation. In this paper, the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) has been employed to analyze how the conflict was represented on three types of platforms that have distinct technical and social affordances: X (real-time textual discourse); TikTok (short-form audiovisual virality); and YouTube (long-form videos, and crucially, platform moderation). The analysis is based on a verified, publicly stated corpus of documents, platform-moderation events, and independently fact-checked viral phenomena from February to September 2026 and identifies recurring strategies of nomination, predication, argumentation, and perspectivization, as well as how platform architecture (such as the platform's own moderation policy) systematically shapes which version of the conflict is at the fore for which publics. The paper's main thesis is exemplified by a case in which a pro-Iran YouTube channel was banned but maintained in its original form on three other platforms. The study contends that one cannot theorize conflict framing in the digital age without considering the platform and its governance as co-creators of meaning, and it proposes a cross-platform DHA framework as a contribution to digital social research on mediatized conflict.