Gazal Shekhawat

PhD Researcher

Department of Media and Communications

Connect with me

Languages
English, Hindi
Key Expertise
Gender, Platform studies

About me

Biography

At LSE, I am studying how media and communications shape the everyday lives of women in India’s Hindi heartland. Capturing their experiences at different stages of life and vocation, I seek to understand how women navigate the push and shove of culture in the age of social media platforms. I am a Research Associate for the Digital Futures for Children Centre - https://www.digital-futures-for-children.net/home

Before starting my PhD, I was a Research Fellow at Microsoft Research Lab, India where I worked on civic participation and misinformation on social media platforms.  I graduated with distinction from LSE’s Department of Government for my MSc, before which I was based in India. I attained a diploma in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding from the Lady Shri Ram College for Women at the University of Delhi, and a bachelor's in Mass Communication from the Symbiosis Centre for Media and Communication. Before transitioning into research, I worked as a multimedia journalist in India, and have volunteered with women and children’s NGOs.

In London, I teach seminars for the LSE Summer School course ‘International Journalism & Society’ led by Professor Charlie Beckett, and as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) for LSE Sociology’s undergraduate course ‘Power, Inequality and Difference’ led by Professor Fran Tonkiss. My PhD research is supported by a studentship from the AHRC through the London Arts and Humanities Partnership. I can be contacted on my university email and welcome any queries about navigating higher education, especially from candidates who come from underrepresented backgrounds. 

Expertise Details

Gender; Platform studies

Publications

Research Papers

  • Livingstone, S., Cantwell, N., Özkul, D., Shekhawat, G., & Kidron, B. (2024). The best interests of the child in the digital environment. Digital Futures for Children centre. https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/122492/3/Best_Interests_of_the_Child_FINAL.pdf
  • Mishra, D., Akbar, S., Shekhawat, G., & Pal, J. (2022). Virality and the Virus: COVID-19 Cures on Twitter in India. In Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). University of Hawaii at Manoa. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/virality-and-the-virus-covid-19-cures-on-twitter-in-india
  • Dash, S., Mishra, D., Shekhawat, G., & Pal, J. (2022, May). Divided we rule: Influencer polarization on Twitter during political crises in India. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (Vol. 16, pp. 135-146).
  • Grover, R., Shekhawat, G., & Pal, J. (2021). Twitter superstars don’t win elections: A Poster on Twitter Campaigning and Electoral Realities in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly Elections. In ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (COMPASS) (pp. 428-431). https://doi.org/10.1145/3460112.3471982
  • Arya, A., De, S., Mishra, D., Shekhawat, G., Sharma, A., Panda, A., M Lalani, F., Singh, P., Kommiya Mothilal, R., Grover, R., Nishal, S., Dash, S., Rashid Shora, S., Akbar, S. Z., & Pal, J. (n.d.). DISMISS: Database of Indian Social Media Influencers (Snowballed Sequentially) on Twitter (V1 ed.). Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/doi:10.7910/DVN/F3EWLZ
  • Dash, S., Shekhawat, G., Akbar, S. Z., & Pal, J. (2021). Extremism & Whataboutism: A Case Study on Bangalore Riots.  arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.10526.

 Conference Presentations

  • Livingstone, S., Cantwell, N., Özkul, D., Shekhawat, G., & Kidron, B. (Upcoming). Critical reflections on how digital providers respect “the best interests of the child.” Panel presented at AoIR 2024: The 25th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. Sheffield, UK: AoIR. http://spir.aoir.org
  • Shekhawat, G. (2024). Entertaining against odds: Borders, platformisation and practices of going on in the crossfire of nationalisms. Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association Annual Conference 2024. Sheffield https://easychair.org/smart-program/MeCCSA2024/2024-09-06.html#talk:264575 

Blogs

  • Livingstone, S. & Shekhawat, G.  (2023) AI and Children's Rights. NORRAG Global Education Centre, Graduate Institute, Geneva. https://www.norrag.org/ai-and-childrens-rights/
  • Banaji, S., & Shekhawat, G. (2024). On killing children. Media@ LSE. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2024/05/30/on-killing-children/ Shekhawat, G., & Livingstone, S. (2023). AI and children’s rights: a guide to the transnational guidance. Media@LSE Blog.
  • Mishra, D., Akbar, S., Shekhawat, G., & Pal, J. (2022). Virality and the Virus: COVID-19 Cures on Twitter in India. In Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). University of Hawaii at Manoa. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/virality-and-the-virus-covid-19-cures-on-twitter-in-india
  • Dash, S., Mishra, D., Shekhawat, G., & Pal, J. (2022, May). Divided we rule: Influencer polarization on Twitter during political crises in India. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (Vol. 16, pp. 135-146).
  • Arya, A., De, S., Mishra, D., Shekhawat, G., Sharma, A., Panda, A., M Lalani, F., Singh, P., Kommiya Mothilal, R., Grover, R., Nishal, S., Dash, S., Rashid Shora, S., Akbar, S. Z., & Pal, J. (n.d.). DISMISS: Database of Indian Social Media Influencers (Snowballed Sequentially) on Twitter (V1 ed.). Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/doi:10.7910/DVN/F3EWLZ
  • Grover, R., Shekhawat, G., & Pal, J. (2021). Twitter superstars don’t win elections: A Poster on Twitter Campaigning and Electoral Realities in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly Elections. In ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (COMPASS) (pp. 428-431). https://doi.org/10.1145/3460112.3471982
  • Dash, S., Shekhawat, G., Akbar, S. Z., & Pal, J. (2021). Extremism & Whataboutism: A Case Study on Bangalore Riots.  arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.10526.