May 13, 2026
Center Affiliate Asta Zelenkauskaite, Professor of Communication, Culture, and Media at Drexel University, recently published an article in Telematics and Informatics titled "Hashtags as attention seeking in a global event: Gender hijacking, spamming, and appeals to unrelated causes" with her colleague, Dr. Peter English of the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia).
This study illustrates what the authors call gender hijacking, a phemenon where users on X and other social media platforms used hashtags during an official world event—the women's FIFA games that took place in Australia and New Zealand—to discuss topics related to male sports. Hashtags are a sociotechnical feature that typically helps organize content online and make it visible or searchable. The study illustrates how specific political causes were made visible while other causes were absent.
The research was inspired by analysis of the FIFA games by Dr. English, who is a sports journalist and scholar. The topic aligns with Zelenkauskaite's broader interest in emergent content that strategically either empowers users or manifests as harmful practices such as online disinformation.
Zelenkauskaite became an Affiliate of the CCMC when it was created in 2014, two years after she earned her Ph.D. in Mass Communication from Indiana University Bloomington. She describes herself as a scholar of Communication and Culture whose research intersects with information science approaches. Her 2022 book, Creating Chaos Online: Disinformation and Subverted Post-Publics, explores what she calls "dark practices" online.
Follow this link to see Professor Zelenkauskaite's publications