@inproceedings{tardelli-etal-2026-emoji,
title = "Emoji Reactions on Telegram: Unreliable Indicators of Emotional Resonance",
author = "Tardelli, Serena and
Alvisi, Lorenzo and
Cima, Lorenzo and
Cresci, Stefano and
Tesconi, Maurizio",
editor = "Barnes, Jeremy and
Barriere, Valentin and
De Clercq, Orph{\'e}e and
Klinger, Roman and
Nouri, C{\'e}lia and
Nozza, Debora and
Singh, Pranaydeep",
booktitle = "The Proceedings for the 15th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Subjectivity, Sentiment Social Media Analysis ({WASSA} 2026)",
month = mar,
year = "2026",
address = "Rabat, Morocco",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.wassa-1.2/",
pages = "13--23",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-378-4",
abstract = "Emoji reactions are a frequently used feature of messaging platforms, yet their communicative role remains understudied. Prior work on emojis has focused predominantly on in-text usage, showing that emojis embedded in messages tend to amplify and mirror the author{'}s affective tone. This evidence has often been extended to emoji reactions, treating them as indicators of emotional resonance or user sentiment. However, they may reflect broader social dynamics. Here, we investigate the communicative function of emoji reactions on Telegram. We analyze over 650k crypto-related messages that received at least one reaction, annotating each with sentiment, emotion, persuasion strategy, and speech act labels, and inferring the sentiment and emotion of emoji reactions using both lexicons and LLMs. We uncover a systematic mismatch between message and reaction sentiment, with positive reactions dominating even for neutral or negative content. This pattern persists across rhetorical strategies and emotional tones, indicating that emojis used as reactions do not reliably function as indicators of emotional mirroring or resonance of the content, in contrast to findings reported for in-text emojis. Finally, we identify the features that most predict emoji engagement. Overall, our findings caution against treating emoji reactions as sentiment labels, highlighting the need for more nuanced approaches in sentiment and engagement analysis."
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<abstract>Emoji reactions are a frequently used feature of messaging platforms, yet their communicative role remains understudied. Prior work on emojis has focused predominantly on in-text usage, showing that emojis embedded in messages tend to amplify and mirror the author’s affective tone. This evidence has often been extended to emoji reactions, treating them as indicators of emotional resonance or user sentiment. However, they may reflect broader social dynamics. Here, we investigate the communicative function of emoji reactions on Telegram. We analyze over 650k crypto-related messages that received at least one reaction, annotating each with sentiment, emotion, persuasion strategy, and speech act labels, and inferring the sentiment and emotion of emoji reactions using both lexicons and LLMs. We uncover a systematic mismatch between message and reaction sentiment, with positive reactions dominating even for neutral or negative content. This pattern persists across rhetorical strategies and emotional tones, indicating that emojis used as reactions do not reliably function as indicators of emotional mirroring or resonance of the content, in contrast to findings reported for in-text emojis. Finally, we identify the features that most predict emoji engagement. Overall, our findings caution against treating emoji reactions as sentiment labels, highlighting the need for more nuanced approaches in sentiment and engagement analysis.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Emoji Reactions on Telegram: Unreliable Indicators of Emotional Resonance
%A Tardelli, Serena
%A Alvisi, Lorenzo
%A Cima, Lorenzo
%A Cresci, Stefano
%A Tesconi, Maurizio
%Y Barnes, Jeremy
%Y Barriere, Valentin
%Y De Clercq, Orphée
%Y Klinger, Roman
%Y Nouri, Célia
%Y Nozza, Debora
%Y Singh, Pranaydeep
%S The Proceedings for the 15th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Subjectivity, Sentiment Social Media Analysis (WASSA 2026)
%D 2026
%8 March
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Rabat, Morocco
%@ 979-8-89176-378-4
%F tardelli-etal-2026-emoji
%X Emoji reactions are a frequently used feature of messaging platforms, yet their communicative role remains understudied. Prior work on emojis has focused predominantly on in-text usage, showing that emojis embedded in messages tend to amplify and mirror the author’s affective tone. This evidence has often been extended to emoji reactions, treating them as indicators of emotional resonance or user sentiment. However, they may reflect broader social dynamics. Here, we investigate the communicative function of emoji reactions on Telegram. We analyze over 650k crypto-related messages that received at least one reaction, annotating each with sentiment, emotion, persuasion strategy, and speech act labels, and inferring the sentiment and emotion of emoji reactions using both lexicons and LLMs. We uncover a systematic mismatch between message and reaction sentiment, with positive reactions dominating even for neutral or negative content. This pattern persists across rhetorical strategies and emotional tones, indicating that emojis used as reactions do not reliably function as indicators of emotional mirroring or resonance of the content, in contrast to findings reported for in-text emojis. Finally, we identify the features that most predict emoji engagement. Overall, our findings caution against treating emoji reactions as sentiment labels, highlighting the need for more nuanced approaches in sentiment and engagement analysis.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.wassa-1.2/
%P 13-23
Markdown (Informal)
[Emoji Reactions on Telegram: Unreliable Indicators of Emotional Resonance](https://aclanthology.org/2026.wassa-1.2/) (Tardelli et al., WASSA 2026)
ACL
- Serena Tardelli, Lorenzo Alvisi, Lorenzo Cima, Stefano Cresci, and Maurizio Tesconi. 2026. Emoji Reactions on Telegram: Unreliable Indicators of Emotional Resonance. In The Proceedings for the 15th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Subjectivity, Sentiment Social Media Analysis (WASSA 2026), pages 13–23, Rabat, Morocco. Association for Computational Linguistics.