Analyzing the Use of Audio Messages in WhatsApp Groups

WhatsApp is a free messaging app with more than one billion active monthly users which has become one of the main communication platforms in many countries, including Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Brazil. In addition to allowing the direct exchange of messages among pairs of users, the app also enables group conversations, where multiple people can interact with one another. A number of recent studies have shown that WhatsApp groups play an important role as an information dissemination platform, especially during important social mobilization events. In this paper, we build upon those prior efforts by taking a first look into the use of audio messages in WhatsApp groups, a type of content that is becoming increasingly important in the platform. We present a methodology to analyze audio messages shared in WhatsApp groups, characterizing content properties (e.g, topics and language characteristics), their propagation dynamics and the impact of different types of audios (e.g., speech versus music) on such dynamics.