Congratulations to NULab core faculty members Moya Bailey, Assistant Professor of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Brooke Foucault Welles, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, along with Sarah Jackson, Presidential Associate Professor at UPenn’s School of Communication, for receiving the Applied/Public Policy Research Award from the International Communication Association (ICA) for their book, #Hashtag Activism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice. #Hashtag Activism examines how “marginalized groups use Twitter to advance counter-narratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent” (MIT Press). The book was partially supported by a NULab seedling grant.
The Applied/Public Policy Award was one of the honors recognized at the 70th Annual ICA Conference, held virtually on May 20, 2020. Announced on May 25, ICA noted that “Bailey, Welles, and Jackson exemplify a new generation of scholars who are redefining what public impact scholarship looks like and how communication researchers can engage diverse audiences.” #Hashtag Activism was recognized as outstanding mixed-methods scholarship, combining computational and qualitative research to demonstrate the centrality of key hashtags in producing counter-publics for marginalized groups to resist oppression via Twitter communication. One defining aspect of the book’s production was that the authors invited (and compensated) the hashtags’ creators themselves to explain the origin and impact of hashtags such as #YesAllWomen, #BlackLivesMatter, and others.
