N.46 (March 2027- August 2027): Gender, Power, Media, and Communication in the Age of the Broligarchy

2026-08-31

Guest Editors:
Sara Tolbert, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Mahdis Azarmandi, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Jill Koyama, Arizona State University (ASU),  Tempe, AZ, USA

Submission deadline: December 31st 2026

Keywords: Platform patriarchy; Broligarchy; Networked misogyny; Platformicide; Feminist digital activism

Abstract

Gender and communication are deeply interconnected dimensions of contemporary social life, but the terrain on which they meet has been reshaped by a concentration of technological and political power, recently termed the "broligarchy" (Cadwalladr, 2025), i.e., a small, rapidly consolidating cluster of tech billionaires and now trillionaire whose platforms increasingly govern conditions of both online and offline life. These same infrastructures are also enlisted globally for state surveillance and censorship (particularly of queer communities and women) and even warfare, such as in the case of Peter Thiel’s Palantir, extending platform power into the machinery of governance and militarization.

This thematic issue follows recent scholarship in digital feminisms, which treat platforms as patriarchal, profit-driven ecosystems whose architecture governs which voices get heard, and what knowledges are visible (Hurley & Evans, 2026; Trott, 2022; Wajcman, 2006). Furthermore, platform patriarchy both exploits women while also making harassment and violence a predictable cost of women’s online visibility. Media representations, political discourse, and everyday digital interactions remain key sites in which gender identities, relations, and inequalities are produced and contested, but these processes now unfold within infrastructures owned, designed, and increasingly weaponized by a narrow set of political and corporate actors.

This issue invites theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions examining the intersections of gender, communication, and platform power from perspectives in communication, cultural studies, sociology, and political science—attending not only to how platform patriarchy operates but to the feminist counterpublics, activism, and everyday tactics that contest them (Hurley & Evans, 2026; Tolbert & Azarmandi, 2026; Trott, 2022). It seeks scholarship on how platform patriarchy operates in practice: through the deplatforming and "platformicide" of feminist and marginalized voices; through algorithmic and moderation systems that reproduce gendered and racialized hierarchies; through networked misogyny and the governance failures that enable it; and through the entanglement of platform governance with state and geopolitical projects to embed political narratives directly into the infrastructures that increasingly mediate public knowledge.

Potential areas of interest include, but are not limited to: platform patriarchy and the broligarchy; gender representation in traditional and digital media; political communication and gender; feminist and intersectional communication practices; feminist digital activism, social movements, and resistance; deplatforming, platformicide, and the silencing of feminist voices; networked misogyny and online governance; artificial intelligence, algorithmic bias, and state influence operations; identities and sexualities; media, communication, and warfare; gendered participation in public discourse; and the communicative practices through which gender and power relations are reproduced, negotiated, or challenged within increasingly consolidated media and technology infrastructures.

The issue particularly welcomes interdisciplinary, comparative, and international perspectives — including scholarship attentive to how platform patriarchy manifests differently across regions, political systems, and epistemological traditions — in order to foster dialogue on the role of communication in both sustaining and disrupting contemporary gender and power relations.

Cadwalladr, C. (2025, April 7). This is what a digital coup looks like [Video]. TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_this_is_what_a_digital_coup_looks_like

Hurley, Z., & Evans, A. (2026a). Digital mirrors and the glimmer of postdigital feminisms. Postdigital Science and Education, 8(1), 16–28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00556-x

Tolbert, S., & Azarmandi, M. (2026). (Not Just) Another Manifesto: Postdigital feminist (citizen) science in patriarchy-capitalist ruins. Postdigital Science and Education, 8(1), 29-46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00587-4

Trott, V. (2022). Feminist activism and platform politics. Taylor & Francis.

Wajcman, J. (2006). Technocapitalism meets technofeminism: women and technology in a wireless world. Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, 16(3), 7-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/10301763.2006.10669327