How Does Multimedia Disinformation Spread in Telegram? A Study of Messages Published in Spanish "Alternative" Channels from 2019 to 2024

Social media platforms enable instant connections between users but also facilitate the spread of disinformation. This study focuses on Spanish-language public Telegram channels, examining messages published from late 2019 through mid-2024 to explore how different content types propagate. The results show that multimedia messages receive substantially more views than text-only posts and tend to stand out in their context, with this effect being especially pronounced in channels with large subscriber bases. The notable growth of multimedia content and its predominance in specific conversation topics suggest that disinformation has wide circulation on networks and tends to concentrate on particularly sensitive issues, employing increasingly attractive formats for the public.