{"title":"Hashtags as attention seeking in a global event: Gender hijacking, spamming, and appeals to unrelated causes","authors":"Asta Zelenkauskaite , Peter English","doi":"10.1016/j.tele.2025.102303","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Global events attract widespread attention not only from fans who go to see the games but also from online users. Yet, the staging of such events can also overlap with a range of events: international issues occurring at the same time or promotion or selling of services that can be typically classified as spam. This study uncovers how hashtag spamming can overshadow a major global sporting event. By focusing on hashtags unrelated to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 and employing mixed methods approaches, we focused on how hashtags were hijacked to promote causes that were irrelevant to the Women’s World Cup, and served as arenas for visibility of spam. The results of this study reflect how unrelated content can hijack elements of a media event and reveal the mechanisms utilized to highlight how this occurs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48257,"journal":{"name":"Telematics and Informatics","volume":"101 ","pages":"Article 102303"},"PeriodicalIF":7.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Telematics and Informatics","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0736585325000656","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Global events attract widespread attention not only from fans who go to see the games but also from online users. Yet, the staging of such events can also overlap with a range of events: international issues occurring at the same time or promotion or selling of services that can be typically classified as spam. This study uncovers how hashtag spamming can overshadow a major global sporting event. By focusing on hashtags unrelated to the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 and employing mixed methods approaches, we focused on how hashtags were hijacked to promote causes that were irrelevant to the Women’s World Cup, and served as arenas for visibility of spam. The results of this study reflect how unrelated content can hijack elements of a media event and reveal the mechanisms utilized to highlight how this occurs.
期刊介绍:
Telematics and Informatics is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes cutting-edge theoretical and methodological research exploring the social, economic, geographic, political, and cultural impacts of digital technologies. It covers various application areas, such as smart cities, sensors, information fusion, digital society, IoT, cyber-physical technologies, privacy, knowledge management, distributed work, emergency response, mobile communications, health informatics, social media's psychosocial effects, ICT for sustainable development, blockchain, e-commerce, and e-government.