FATIMA GAW
Political Communication / Platforms & Networks / Computational Social Science
PhD Candidate, Media Technology & Society, Northwestern University
Fatima Gaw is a PhD Candidate of Media, Technology, and Society at the Department of Communication Studies, School of Communication, Northwestern University.
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She investigates how media logics, platforms, and ecosystems shape contemporary politics. Her research focuses on the social media influencers, networked propaganda, and alternative platforms using multimodal computational methods, network analysis, and quantitative methods.
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She is a researcher at the Northwestern Center for Communication and Public Policy, directed by Dr. Erik C. Nisbet, and the Computational Media and Politics lab, directed by Dr. Yingdan Lu.
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Her work has been published in top peer-reviewed journals----
New Media & Society, Convergence, Policy & Internet, Media, Culture & Society, among other publications.
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She has a Master’s degree in Digital Communication and Culture, High Distinction, from the University of Sydney, and a Bachelor’s degree in Broadcast Communication, Magna Cum Laude, from the University of the Philippines.
LATEST PUBLICATIONS
Ruijgrok , K., Berenschot, W., Gaw , F., Sombatpoonsiri, J., Wiyayanto, Agonos, M.J., & Sastramidjaja, Y. (forthcoming). Towards the Comparative Study of Domestic Influence Operations: Cybertroops and Elite Competition in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. Political Communication.
Gaw , F., Agonos, M.J., Ruijgrok , K., & Suarez, G.S. (2025). Influence Operations as Brokerage: Political-Economic Infrastructures of Manipulation in the 2022 Philippine Elections. International Journal of Communication, 19, 21. Retrieved from https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/23553
Gaw, F., Bunquin, J. B. A., Lanuza, J. M. H., Cabbuag, S. I., Sapalo, N. H., & Yusoph, A.-H. (2025). Covert political campaigning: Mapping the scope, scale, and cost of cross-platform election influence operations. New Media & Society, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241312191
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Gaw, F., & Bunquin, J. B. A. (2024). In Dishonor of: The Assemblage of Counter-Memory as Networked Resistance on Twitter. International Journal of Communication, 18, 25. Retrieved from https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21308/4547
UNDER REVIEW
Gaw, F. & Nisbet, E. (under review). Influencer Media Logic: Theorizing Influencer Media and Mapping Empirical Pathways across Social Domains. Communication Theory.
Gaw, F., Mortenson, C. R., Fakhari, H., Abhari, R., Hussain, I.F., Lokmanoglu, A.D., & Nisbet, E.C. (under review). Ports of illiberalism: Cross-platform diffusion of far right, conspiratorial, and reactionary Rumble videos on Facebook. New Media & Society.