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How Tweet It Is: A Gendered Analysis of Professional Tennis Players’ Self-Presentation on Twitter
Abstract
The innovations of social media have altered the traditional methods of fan–athlete interaction while redefining how celebrity athletes practice their roles as celebrities. This study explored gender differences in professional athletes’ self-presentation on Twitter. Content analyses were used to compare male and female athletes’ tweets relayed by all professional tennis players with a verified Twitter account. Profile details and messages were scoured for themes and patterns of use during the time surrounding the 2011 U.S. Open Tennis Championships. Goffman’s seminal 1959 theory of self-presentation guided the analysis. While athlete image construction was found to be largely similar between genders, male athletes were found to spend more time in the role of sport fan while female athletes spent more time in the role of brand manager.
... Previous research evaluated the use of Twitter and Facebook. Recently, more emphasis has been placed on Instagram concerning how athletes present themselves (Anagnostopoulos et al., 2018;Davies and Mudrick, 2017;Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, 2016;Hambrick et al., 2010;Lebel and Danylchuk, 2012;Pegoraro and Jinnah, 2012;Smith and Sanderson, 2015;Tiggemann and Zaccardo, 2018;Thorpe, 2018a, 2018b). Instagram is a visual instrument. ...
... The three theories help explaining how female footballers construct their brand on Instagram. Goffman's (1959) self-presentation theory assesses identities adopted by players according to presentation goals or audience expectations and has been used frequently in previous studies (e.g., Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, 2016;Lebel and Danylchuk, 2012;Smith and Sanderson, 2015). This theory is complemented by Eagly's (1987) social role theory of sex differences to clarify female footballers' roles in their social media channels. ...
... This study enabled a holistic analysis of female footballers' personal brand construction. Looking at Instagram post, we assessed not only the commonly investigated athlete perspective (Anagnostopoulos et al., 2018;Hambrick et al., 2010;Lebel and Danylchuk, 2012;Smith and Sanderson, 2015), but also examined the fan perspective, which is rare (Lebel et al., 2019). Studies investigating images were mostly consumer-focused (Kristiansen and Williams, 2015;Lobpries et al., 2017). ...
... Although there is a considerable amount of research on understanding the athlete brand image (Arai et al., 2014), athlete branding strategies and barriers (Lobpries et al., 2018), and selfpresentation strategies in relation to athletes (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012), little is known about how a brand can change over time, specifically for female athletes. Over the course of any athlete's career, they must battle win/loss records, injuries, team trades, and eventual retirement. ...
... Several researchers have applied self-presentation theory to social media, specifically in a text-based platform such as Twitter (Hayes Sauder & Blaszka, 2018;Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012). Lebel and Danylchuk analyzed Twitter content from male and female professional tennis players during the time of the U.S. Open, while Hayes Sauder and Blazska established a key framework of evaluating tweets in a self-presentation content analysis over the course of a major tournament by examining the United States women's national soccer team's (USWNT) Twitter profiles during the 2015 World Cup. ...
... The authors identified six categories of athlete pictures and found that most female athletes preferred a backstage approach to their photos on Instagram. Findings were also consistent with similar studies in that women were more likely to present themselves from a backstage perspective using a perceived brand manager role (Hayes Sauder & Blaszka, 2018;Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012;Smith & Sanderson, 2015). Finally, the women in Geurin-Eagleman and Burch's study were more likely to post sexually suggestive photos in comparison with the male athletes, which the authors pointed out, could have long-term negative effects on their public persona. ...
Branding and self-presentation strategies on text and visual platforms have been explored in a variety of ways such as gendered analyses and content analyses performed on the social media profiles of athletes at multiple levels of sport. The purpose of this study was to examine branding and self-presentation strategies of two highly visible professional female soccer players (i.e., Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe) over two different time periods: 2019 and 2020. Results show that branding and presentation strategies can shift over the course of an athlete’s career. Implications from this study include adjusting brand strategies for clients over time, using other athletes’ strategies as their own framework, and promoting brand authenticity in accordance with their daily lives.
... Previous research evaluated the use of Twitter and Facebook. Recently, more emphasis has been placed on Instagram concerning how athletes present themselves (Anagnostopoulos et al., 2018;Davies and Mudrick, 2017;Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, 2016;Hambrick et al., 2010;Lebel and Danylchuk, 2012;Pegoraro and Jinnah, 2012;Smith and Sanderson, 2015;Tiggemann and Zaccardo, 2018;Thorpe, 2018a, 2018b). Instagram is a visual instrument. ...
... The three theories help explaining how female footballers construct their brand on Instagram. Goffman's (1959) self-presentation theory assesses identities adopted by players according to presentation goals or audience expectations and has been used frequently in previous studies (e.g., Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, 2016;Lebel and Danylchuk, 2012;Smith and Sanderson, 2015). This theory is complemented by Eagly's (1987) social role theory of sex differences to clarify female footballers' roles in their social media channels. ...
... This study enabled a holistic analysis of female footballers' personal brand construction. Looking at Instagram post, we assessed not only the commonly investigated athlete perspective (Anagnostopoulos et al., 2018;Hambrick et al., 2010;Lebel and Danylchuk, 2012;Smith and Sanderson, 2015), but also examined the fan perspective, which is rare (Lebel et al., 2019). Studies investigating images were mostly consumer-focused (Kristiansen and Williams, 2015;Lobpries et al., 2017). ...
... Influenciadores digitais no desporto O efeito social media nos atletas de alto rendimento em Portugal --60 -Os atletas usam as redes sociais para divulgar a sua marca, contrariar imagens negativas dos media, endossar produtos, partilhar informações sobre a concorrência e interagir com os fãs (Clavio & Kian, 2010;Frederick, Lim, Clavio, Pedersen, & Burch, 2014;Hambrick et al., 2010;Kassing& Sanderson, 2010;Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012;Pegoraro, 2010). ...
... As redes sociais apresentam aos atletas com uma série de benefícios e desafios. Vários estudos mostram que os atletas usam posts do Twitter e do Instagram para "bastidores performances", ou seja, para se concentrarem nas suas vidas pessoais (Guerin-Eagleman & Burch, 2016; Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012. Assim, os atletas devem estar cientes do impacto potencialmente negativo que o uso das redes sociais pode ter na sua reputação e marca. ...
... Horas de utilização diária do digital Apesar dos blogs serem identificados como a 2ª plataforma mais utilizada pelos influencers, são indicados apenas como o 12º conteúdo mais visto por parte dos atletas de alto rendimento o que está de acordo com o estudo da GlobalWebIndex de 2020 que os coloca apenas em 5º lugar. De referir que parece existir aqui uma lógica ao percebermos que um consumidor de um blog é e está muito mais envolvido que numa plataforma como o Instagram ou, por exemplo, o Facebook, onde é possível interagir de uma forma mais linear e muito menor envolvimento, nomeadamente colocando apenas um like.Sabe-se que os atletas usam as redes sociais para divulgar a sua marca, contrariar imagens negativas dos média, endossar produtos, partilhar informações sobre a concorrência e interagir com os fãs(Clavio & Kian, 2010; Frederick, Lim, Clavio, Pedersen, & Burch, 2014; Hambrick et al., 2010; Kassing& Sanderson, 2010;Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012; Pegoraro, 2010).Tal como Guerin (2017) que indica que os atletas olímpicos por ele estudados percebem os benefícios e desafios do uso destes novos meios de comunicação para interagir com os seguidores, comunicar com outros atletas, abrir oportunidades de patrocínio e partilhar aspetos das suas vidas pessoais, também neste estudo podemos verificar que o uso das redes sociais, nomeadamente o seguir de influencers digitais, é uma dominante por entre a amostra recolhida.No estudo de Guerin 75% das atletas usam as redes sociais para promover o seu desporto/marca, das quais 93% publicam o seu próprio conteúdo. Neste estudo avaliamos que 82 % dos atletas inquiridos afirmam seguirem influenciadores digitais.Para os 25% que planeiam os seus posts, o mais importante é o tipo de conteúdo (76%), seguida pelo timing (68%), frequência (53%), e requisitos de patrocínio.60% ...
RESUMO: O campo de investigação que relaciona o desporto de alto rendimento e a comunicação digital carece de conhecimento científico específico aprofundado. O objetivo geral pretende conhecer o efeito social media nos atletas de alto rendimento, nomeadamente dos influenciadores digitais, figuras emergentes dos nossos dias. Metodologicamente, a amostra é composta por 176 atletas de alto rendimento de nível A. Para recolha dos dados, recorremos ao inquérito por questionário aplicado através do Google forms com um total de 25 questões. As perguntas são do tipo fechadas, abertas, de escolha múltipla e de escala tipo Likert. Na análise estatística utilizámos essencialmente uma análise descritiva, apresentando as frequências absolutas e relativas das respostas categóricas e a média e o desvio padrão das respostas numéricas. Também foram calculadas correlações (Pearson correlation). Usámos o coeficiente τ de Kendall para calcular as correlações entre os vários itens de cada pergunta. Os resultados partem de uma identificação e caracterização dos inquiridos, e seguem para a análise de diferentes fatores evidenciados: A grande maioria dos atletas seguem influenciadores digitais; Os “health influencers” e os conteúdos informativos, lúdicos e de entretenimento, em particular os relacionados com o treino desportivo são os que mais interesse despertam; O Instagram, o WhatsApp e o YouTube são os canais de informação mais utilizados; Os computadores portáteis, os “smartphones” e os telemóveis são os dispositivos mais usados; Os vídeos e as imagens são os formatos de publicação que despertam mais atenção; Os atletas usam os dispositivos eletrónicos diariamente ou várias vezes por dia com tempos de utilização média entre uma e três horas; Os atletas alteraram hábitos ou seguiram conselhos dados por influenciadores digitais e os comportamentos mais frequentemente adotados por influência foram “Fazer o mesmo exercício”, “Fazer a mesma receita”, e seguir “Alguém por sugestão”. Como evidenciado na literatura para os utilizadores de social media, também os atletas são influenciados pelos seus pares, alterando e adotando comportamentos. Parece também perceber-se que existe uma influência na performance, quando afirmam que esta influência também altera o treino e a competição. Concluímos que a exposição a que os social media obrigam é algo que preocupa os atletas de alto rendimento, e que vai inteiramente ao encontro do propósito deste estudo, percebendo que é necessário mediar, estruturar e planear esta mesma exposição. ABSTRACT: The field of research relating high-performance sport and digital communication lacks in-depth specific scientific knowledge. The overall objective is to know the social media effect on high-income highlands, particularly digital influencers, emerging figures of our day. Methodologically, the sample consists of 176 high-performance A-level athletes. The questions are closed, open, multiple-choice, and Likert-type scale. In the statistical analysis we essentially used a descriptive analysis, presenting the absolute and relative frequencies of categorical responses and the mean and standard deviation of numerical responses. Pearson correlations werealso calculated. We used Kendall's τ coefficient to calculate the correlations between the various items of each question. The results start from an identification and characterization of the respondents, and go on to analyze different factors evidenced: The vast majority of athletes follow digital influencers; Health influencers and informative, playful and entertainment content, in particular those related to sports training, are the ones that are most interested; Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube are the most widely used information channels; Laptops, smartphones and mobile phones are the most commonly used devices; Videos and images are the publication formats that attract the most attention; Athletes use electronic devices daily or several times a day with average usage times between one and three hours; Athletes altered habits or followed advice given by digital influencers and the behaviors most often adopted by influence were "Doing the same exercise", "Making the same recipe", and following "Someone by suggestion". As evidenced in the literature for social media users, athletes are also influenced by their peers, altering and adopting behaviors. It also seems to be realized that there is an influence on performance, when they state that this influence also alters training and competition. We conclude that the exposure to which social media obliges is something that worries high- performance athletes, and that it is entirely in line with the purpose of this study, realizing that it is necessary to mediate, structure and plan this same exposure.
... Similarly, the broad variety of available social media platforms means that such channels are rarely used in isolation with many athletes promoting themselves across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, among others (Highfield & Leaver, 2015;Horky et al., 2021;Scolere, 2019). This has prompted many researchers to seek an understanding of how athletes present themselves in photographs (Frederick et al., 2017;Geurin-Eagleman & Burch, 2016;Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012;Romney & Johnson, 2020) as well as text (Frederick et al., 2017;Grimmer & Horky, 2018;Pegoraro, 2010). However, existing research has mostly focused on one platform at a time and has not compared the effects of athletes' self-presentation across multiple platforms with varying logics simultaneously nor has it investigated winter sports. ...
... Lebel and Danylchuk (2014) used Goffman's performance categorization to interpret athletes' self-presentation on Twitter. The borders between backstage and front-stage performance are blurred (Franck & Nüesch, 2012;Horky et al., 2021) and have remained consistent throughout research over the years (Geurin-Eagleman & Burch, 2016;Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012;Pegoraro, 2010;Romney & Johnson, 2020;Su et al., 2020). Social networks mainly focus on self-promotion and the sporting self through accounts and profiles (Finlay, 2018;Toffoletti & Thorpe, 2018) and generally allow controlled impression management (Nezlek & Leary, 2002). ...
... Recent studies investigating single channels identified the importance of athletes appearing in photos (Fink & Kensicki, 2002). Further research found that professionals choose to present themselves in a more personal and private environment (Geurin-Eagleman & Burch, 2016;Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012), whereas teams prefer to present their athletes in athletic settings and poses (Frederick et al., 2017;Romney & Johnson, 2020). This team presentation supports the fact that fans are rarely interested in personal details as they prefer their image construction to center around their role as sports people (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2014). ...
Social media sites are rich communication and marketing tools used by athletes to promote their “brand” and interact with fans. Indeed, the proliferation of social media has led to athletes promoting themselves across multiple platforms. This study examined how the world’s top 10 professional alpine skiing athletes used social media to present themselves and engage with fans during the 2017–18 World Cup and 2018 Winter Olympic Games. The data for the latest Winter Olympic Games in 2022 (organized under changed circumstances because of COVID-19) were not available for this study at the time of finalization. Guided by self-presentation theory, this study used a content analysis to examine how athletes presented themselves in social media photographs. The results demonstrated that athletes employed similar posting patterns across the social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). The posting distribution per athlete and channel was different, as some athletes used the same posts across all channels. Twitter boasted the highest posting frequency. Based on the coded social media posts, athletes’ self-presentation mainly focused on business life content. Thus, they appeared as dressed but posed , a finding that aligns with Goffman’s notion of front-stage performance . This case study extends the literature as it involves an analysis of self-presentation across multiple channels, comparing two international events while using a sample of one sport.
... • H6: Male athletes mainly focus on endorsing sports-related products, whereas female athletes promote a wider range of brands (cf. Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012). 6 ...
... Analysis of the communication of tennis players on Twitter showed, male athletes focus more on sports that in their promotional posts, while female athletes are predominantly brand-oriented (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012). Surprisingly, the typology of male and female athletes in Lebel's and Danylchuk's (2012) research, which included types such as the "conversationalist," the "sports insider," the "behind-thescenes reporter," the "super fan," the "informer," the "analyst," the "publicist," ...
... Analysis of the communication of tennis players on Twitter showed, male athletes focus more on sports that in their promotional posts, while female athletes are predominantly brand-oriented (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012). Surprisingly, the typology of male and female athletes in Lebel's and Danylchuk's (2012) research, which included types such as the "conversationalist," the "sports insider," the "behind-thescenes reporter," the "super fan," the "informer," the "analyst," the "publicist," ...
This dissertation is aimed at exploring social media communication of Czech athletes, with a focus on the commercialization of their content. Its purpose is to analyze the subject from the perspective of the athletes who are communicating through social networking sites as well as from the perspective of their fans who are receiving their messages with both sports and commercial character. Although studies focused on athlete’s communication on social media and audience reactions to it have been conducted in other countries, similar studies have not yet been conducted in the Czech Republic. Athletes’ communication via social networks and its commercial potential is a topic of current interest. Exploring it is beneficial, and this work will expand the body of knowledge of the subject. It will also help to show the regional specifics of sports-related communication via social media and the commercialization of sportsrelated content. The research consists of two parts: the first is a content analysis of selected athletes’ Facebook pages, which encoded data over the course of one year in order to preclude distortion of the results due to seasonality. The second part is an analysis of interviews with athletes and some of their representatives. Both parts are mutually complementary and expand understanding of the subject matter.
... Karg and Lock (2014) came to this conclusion that while social media may not directly yield revenue, but by establishing fan communities they confer the advantage of brand awareness to sport entities which itself provides other outcomes. Lebel and Danylchuk (2012) stated that social media has conferred lots of opportunities to athletes to express themselves via social media, so they must be aware of how they present themselves in cyber space. Also, DeAndrea and Walther (2011) analysed Facebook users' self-presentations and concluded each post a person shares has the potential to promote or ruin the cyber character of that person. ...
... A little research has been focused on athlete self-presentation on social media platforms, and results revealed that athletes engage in backstage performances to discuss their private lives and engage with individuals (Burch et al., 2014, Hambrick et al., 2010, Lebel and Danylchuk, 2012. Moreover, Burch et al. (2014) and Lebel and Danylchuk (2012) studied gender differences across self-presentation and found no differences in self-presentation across gender. ...
... A little research has been focused on athlete self-presentation on social media platforms, and results revealed that athletes engage in backstage performances to discuss their private lives and engage with individuals (Burch et al., 2014, Hambrick et al., 2010, Lebel and Danylchuk, 2012. Moreover, Burch et al. (2014) and Lebel and Danylchuk (2012) studied gender differences across self-presentation and found no differences in self-presentation across gender. Up to this date the major of research on athletes' self-presentations via social media has focused on Twitter and Facebook. ...
The purpose of this study is to examine Olympic champions' characteristics on Instagram to first understand whether differences exist between male and female athletes and then to find possible correlations between these characteristics. We utilized a content analytic method to analyze Olympic gold medalists' photographs on Instagram. By this way we fetched data from Instagram pages of all those Rio2016 Olympic gold medalists who had their account publicly available. The analysis of data revealed the existence of a positive monotonic relationship between the ratio of following/follower and the ratio of engagement to follower for men gold medalists, and a strong negative monotonic relationship between age and ratio of self-presenting post of both men and women gold medalists which even take a linear form for men. These findings aligned with the relative theories and literature may come together to help the athletes to manage and expand their personal brand in social media.
... Contrary to these findings', other studies [71][72][73] found that there are more females heading farming households as opposed to males. Gender plays an important role in adopting innovations as an advisory tool, as it reveals the variations of users and their general preferences in terms of social media sites, platforms, and applications [74]. The findings agree with results from other studies, that males more than females adopt social media and that females tend to be less involved in technology adoption [19,75]. ...
... Furthermore, other studies found that a significant difference exists between the mean scores of males and females [77,79,96]. Gender mostly reveals the variations in the users' themselves in terms of their preference concerning social media and the undertakings that are promotionally conducted during the utilization of social media sites [74]. Female social media users tend to be more stimulated in purchasing products, having a high fondness for maintaining their memberships together with associations with varying sites and pages they visit on social media [97]. ...
The adoption and utilization of social media as an advisory tool among smallholder farmers is relatively unexplored. Social media has the potential to enhance communication, making agricultural information easily available in the sector. This study investigated the relationship between the attributes of the diffusion of innovation theory and the socio-economic characteristics that influence social media adoption. An independent samples t-test and a one-way ANOVA were used for data analysis. The sample size was 217 smallholder farmers in the Nkomazi local municipality. The results revealed that the difference in the diffusion of innovation attributes based on gender, age, co-operative membership, and level of education had a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05). The findings suggest that extension services and other stakeholders including those in the private sector and policymakers should encourage wider adoption of social media by smallholder farmers. Governments need to invest in infrastructure such as community computer labs for training and access to social media. Open-access social media platforms that allow free internet access should also be considered for development. Additionally, policymakers should consider developing guidelines that encourage online advisory services, learning and information dissemination.
... There are also studies on the digital world; for instance, Yip (2018) studied online reporting. Finally, Lebel and Danylchuk (2012) and Litchfield et al. (2018) examined (self-)representation in social media. ...
... In the coming years and decades, we will see whether the spread of social networks will overtake the medium of autobiography. In the future, earlier and more recent autobiographies should be considered and the results could be combined with findings on "new media" such as social media (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012). In this way, interactions and adaptation processes between media and sports could be mapped in the long term. ...
Although the intertwining of sports and media, especially in soccer and from an organization-centered perspective, has been highlighted in communication research, little attention has been paid to the perception and evaluation of the mediatization of professional tennis. The aim of this study was to close this research gap by presenting the athletes’ perspective. Based on the autobiographies of four top international athletes, we systematized their perceptions of the media before the rise of social media, using a qualitative content analysis. We demonstrate a significant influence of the media system and the perceived media logic: Tennis is closely intertwined with the media, and mediatization processes have strong effects on the players, both positive and negative. Players are aware of the importance of public attention for tennis and actively adapt to the perceived media logic. On the other hand, they often feel inhibited by the press and reject adaptations to media affordances. Our study demonstrates once again the research potential of mediatization as a beneficial concept in studies on sports communication, stresses the need to focus also on the dysfunctional influences of media and mediatization, and opens the path for further research on social media influences.
... In their private life, "backstage," actors show their authentic, private self. While Goffman introduced self-presentation in the context of faceto-face interactions, researchers have used it in the context of social media (e.g., Hull, 2014;Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012;Xu & Armstrong, 2019). In the earliest studies, Lebel and Danylchuk (2012) explored gender differences in professional tennis players' self-presentation on Twitter and reported that athlete image construction between female and male athletes was largely similar, highlighting the use of Twitter by athletes as a self-marketing tool. ...
... While Goffman introduced self-presentation in the context of faceto-face interactions, researchers have used it in the context of social media (e.g., Hull, 2014;Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012;Xu & Armstrong, 2019). In the earliest studies, Lebel and Danylchuk (2012) explored gender differences in professional tennis players' self-presentation on Twitter and reported that athlete image construction between female and male athletes was largely similar, highlighting the use of Twitter by athletes as a self-marketing tool. Similarly, Hull (2014), in a study that examined PGA Tour golfers' Twitter use during the Masters tournament, found professional golfers using Twitter to give insight into their lives and, most importantly, to interact with fans. ...
A key feature of a robust academic discipline is that its homegrown theories and investing in theory contribute to building good research. In the field of sport and social media research, the rigorous utilization of theory is one of the areas where the field is still facing “disciplinary pain.” In fact, the unique features of social media provide researchers in the sport research community with a valuable opportunity for proposing, testing, applying, critiquing, comparing, integrating, and expanding theories. In this commentary, the authors, based on their own experience (as researchers, readers, and reviewers of social media in sport), contend that reference resources are lacking on this topic to help young (or existing) researchers locate appropriate theories for their research. Hence, this work identifies, documents, and discusses the theories used, advanced, and developed in social media research for sport studies. Furthermore, a compilation is brought together of different theories from various disciplines that researchers in this community may consider for their future work.
... Several studies have identified social media as a beneficial tool for sharing information, engaging with fans and communicating with potential sponsors (Eagleman, 2013;Geurin, 2016;Hambrick and Kang, 2015;Lebel and Danylchuk, 2012). Aligning with previous studies, the findings of this study revealed that Iranian athletes also share or control information, entice sponsors and promote themselves as brands through Instagram, but with no specific strategy to meet these goals or any attempts to check whether their goals were met. ...
... As a result, the athletes should work with agents who have communication skills and are familiar with the law. Lebel and Danylchuk (2012) also supported the necessity of "having someone with communications experience to avoid some of the highly publicized miscues that have plagued a number of athletes" (p. 474). ...
Purpose
This study investigates the personal branding strategies utilized by Iranian professional athletes. It also examines the challenges these athletes face in attempting to create a personal brand. For example, unlike their global counterparts, Iranian athletes’ access to social media is limited to only Instagram, due to a ban in Iran on the use of Facebook and Twitter. This specific situation provides unique opportunities and interactions in the personal branding process.
Design/methodology/approach
Utilizing a criterion purposive sample of Iranian professional athletes, the authors conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews to understand the branding strategies and challenges of these athletes.
Findings
Two categories (branding strategies and cultural/societal challenges), along with Six themes emerged. The categories were derived based on the literature review and the subsequent research questions.
Originality/value
This paper provides valuable information on challenges and opportunities for athletes' personal branding from international perspectives. Also, the results of the study broaden our understanding of how athletes' personal branding can function in different countries and contexts. Findings will provide governing bodies and sport marketers have a better understanding of athletes' social media usage.
... Abisaid and Li (2020) note how social media is a more relaxed style of communication by journalists, especially compared with the more rigid rules based on objectivity in traditional sports media. Other studies have examined social media as a means of self-portrayal by athletes, clubs, or associations (Lebel and Danylchuk 2012), as a form of distribution to circumvent the traditional information service of sports journalism , or with different content and forms of sports reporting (Kian and Clavio 2011). Social media is often understood as a marketing tool to spread information and engage fans (Bowman and Cranmer 2014;Boyle 2012). ...
The boundaries of sports journalism continue to expand as non-traditional actors
emerge and proliferate in the digital environment. This outstanding and vital specialist
area within the news industry faces increasing pressure from adjacent fields. Amateur
sports enthusiasts (bloggers, streamers or influencers) and team media for sports
organizations adopt many of the roles and tasks historically attributed to sports
journalism and engage in activities that may be perceived and regarded as journalistic by
audiences.
The arrival of new actors around the journalistic field, the heavy use of social media and
its impact on sports consumption patterns, the search for new business models for news
organizations, and the disrupting technology that is being explored and applied in sports
coverage all require new conceptual approaches to better understand the sports news
industry in the digital age.
All of these considerations led eighteen authors from nine countries (Greece, Portugal,
Spain, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Australia, Ireland, and Sweden) to publish
their research contributions and broaden the discussion in this MDPI reprint about the
current trends in the sports media landscape and the most pressing challenges that
sports journalists need to face in the years to come.
... Abisaid and Li (2020) note how social media is a more relaxed style of communication by journalists, especially compared with the more rigid rules based on objectivity in traditional sports media. Other studies have examined social media as a means of self-portrayal by athletes, clubs, or associations (Lebel and Danylchuk 2012), as a form of distribution to circumvent the traditional information service of sports journalism (Nölleke et al. 2017), or with different content and forms of sports reporting (Kian and Clavio 2011). Social media is often understood as a marketing tool to spread information and engage fans (Bowman and Cranmer 2014;Boyle 2012). ...
Newspaper sports departments in Germany are reacting to changes in social media by expanding their offerings and employing a variety of publishing and engagement strategies. In this constantly evolving media environment, it is important to understand how newsrooms utilize social media to inform their audiences. This study examines the approaches German newspapers apply to publishing sports content on social media, and outlines how users interact with these posts. In analyzing these aspects, this paper applies theoretical elements of agenda setting and audience engagement, gender in media, and quality and diversity of published content. Social media posts were examined across eight German publications, totaling 3633 posts from Twitter and Facebook. Results in the study, which is part of the global 2021 Social Media International Sports Press Survey, highlighted how most of the content published by German newspapers on social media aimed to redirect users to the publications’ websites. The findings also reflect how social media is used less as an editorial space and more as part of a campaign to increase the audience. These results demonstrate challenges for the quality of sports coverage distributed via social networks in Germany.
... Still, women employed the brand-manager structure more than men. 35 Schibblock et al. reached almost the same results by analyzing the world's top 10 professional alpine skiing athletes' self-presentation across multiple channels; Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram comparing two international events; the 2017-18 World Cup and the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. They found that athletes' self-presentation primarily centered on business life content as they appeared dressed but posed, aligning with Goffman's notion of front-stage performance. ...
Drawing on Goffman’s (1959, 1979) influential work on self-presentation and gender displays, this study was designed to analyze the differences between Arab athletes’ self-presentation on social media based on gender. It used content analysis to examine the self-presentation styles of Arab athletes of both genders by analyzing photographs and captions on Instagram. Surprisingly, this study did not find a difference between Arab male and female athletes regarding gender displays. The vast majority of the pictures of both genders did not suggest sexual activity. This study extends the literature by analyzing Arab athletes’ self-presentation across gender, comparing males’ and females’ self-Presentation on Instagram during Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. Contrary to previous research that noted that female athletes emphasize sexuality on Instagram, we argue that Arab female athletes used Instagram to create a contemporary image of sporting femininity image as enabled, empowered, and strongly individualized. As women’s representation in sports media coverage seems to remain at a disadvantage compared with men’s, social media can be exploited as an effective tool for Arab female athletes to redress this shortage of coverage and challenge the normative gender and sexual identities in sports.
... Self-representation theory is gaining popularity in the context of sport and social media through the examination of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (e.g., Markwick and Boyd 2011;Geurin-Eagleman and Burch 2016;Geurin 2017). Several studies investigated athletes' self-representation on Twitter, where researchers found that athletes mostly had more engagement (follows, likes, and comments) when revealing some information about their personal lives (e.g., Burch et al. 2014;Lebel and Danylchuk 2012). Goffman's (1959) theory of selfpresentation describes how people construct their image from an everyday-life perspective by predicting which expectations others have of them and strategically fulfilling or disappointing such expectations in line with the self-representation they want to convey. ...
... Prior literature also has explored gender differences in self-presentation in athletes' social media use. Lebel and Danylchuk (2012) revealed that male tennis players were more likely to express their fandom while their female counterparts spent more time on self-promotion. Similar findings also have been recorded by Weathers et al. (2014) regarding the social media accounts of sport broadcasters Erin Andrews and Kirk Herbstreit. ...
Media coverage of the Winter Olympic Games provides an invaluable opportunity for athletes to promote themselves to a global audience that otherwise would not be reached through regular calendar events. An important element of athlete promotion occurs during press conferences when athletes speak to global media after winning a medal. The purpose of this study was to investigate how Olympic medalists presented themselves in front of the media aft er achieving Olympic success. A thematic analysis was conducted using press conference transcripts from 307 Olympic medalists during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games. The results indicated that athletes were likely to use media opportunities to self-promote their achievements, share secrets and stories, exhibit gratefulness, protest, show patriotism, and provide expert opinion. Overall, six categories of self-presentation were identified and discussed. Practical and theoretical implications are offered throughout, including a contribution to self-presentation theory and suggestions for athlete media literacy training.
... Women (e.g., female celebrities) were judged as more credible by young women on Instagram (Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017). While some research reinforces brand and gender norms (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012), other work counters this perspective (Smith & Sanderson, 2015). Smith and Sanderson (2015) claimed individuals' control of social media affords them the ability to self-present outside gender norms. ...
This study adapts and extends signaling theory to examine perceptions of credibility, gender, homophily, and impression management on social media. Specifically, the influence of different signal types – conventional, assessment, and strategic signals. A 2x3 experimental design was conducted to examine the effect of source gender and signal type on receiver perceptions of source and message credibility, homophily, and impressions of the source. Findings confirm that different signal types affect the perception of message and source credibility on social media. Concepts of gender and homophily were not impacted by signal types in this research. With the increase of image-oriented social media such as Instagram, these results demonstrate the sender's role in the person perception process. The role of signaling theory for strategic communication practices is addressed, and future theoretical directions are considered.
... Research documents unequal coverage of women's sport relative to men's in print (Eagleman, Pedersen, and Wharton 2009;Weber and Carini 2013), broadcast (Billings and Angelini 2007;Billings et al. 2014), web (Jones 2013), and social media (Lebel and Danylchuk 2012). What is more, despite women's increasing participation in sport (Fink 2015), there is evidence that media coverage devoted to female athletes is actually decreasing compared to previous decades (Cooky, Messner, and Hextrum 2013;Billings and Young 2015). ...
... In sports, social media and viral marketing are not only used by clubs, but also by athletes (Hudimova et al., 2021). Social media presence allows athletes to engage with fans (Frederick et al., 2012) and gives them a new way to manage their brand, sell themselves to potential sponsors, and gain support (Lebel & Danylchuk 2012;GeurinEagleman & Burch, 2016;Hull, 2014). In addition to these types of involvement of athletes in social media, researchers have identified the following categories of activities in social networks (Hambrick et al., 2010): 1) interactivity, 2) diversion, 3) information sharing, 4) content, 5) fans), 6) advertising. ...
Communication management in sports organizations requires not only the use of formal tools, such as an official website, fan page or official TV channel. Effective communication should also be based on informal methods, in which the main role is played by interactions between the sports organization and its stakeholders.
One such form is viral marketing, which involves sharing files with humorous, social or image content on social networks, messengers, blogs and e-mail. In the case of such forms, due to the wide range and speed of spreading opinions, especially negative ones, about the company, its services or products, it becomes necessary to control the emerging opinions. Management of information with a viral potential allows you to reach stakeholders in an informal way, influencing the building of a positive image, response in crisis situations or creating communities.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the degree of viral marketing use in sports clubs. The research was conducted in October 2021 on different social media. However, due to the extensive scope of the research, this paper focuses on the social network Facebook. The research is concerned with determining the use of viral marketing potential in information management and identifying the characteristics of this form of influencing stakeholders. Due to the limited volume of the article, the main subject of the study is the Polish clubs of the highest level of competition against the background of examples from abroad.
The main hypothesis of this article assumes that Polish clubs do not fully use the viral potential and communication activities are based on official messages. Communication management is based on peer benchmarking and replication of what others are doing. It is also assumed that departments responsible for communication in sports clubs do not fully use foreign models.
... Emmons & Mocarski, 2014;Geurin-Eagleman & Burch, 2016;Li et al., 2021). For instance, research has shown that male and female athletes brand themselves differently, with men creating more athletic and action-oriented content and women highlighting more emotion-laden and brand-focused content (Emmons & Mocarski, 2014;Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012). Scholars have also investigated how female athletes navigate the contradictory demands of femininity and athleticism in their self-presentation, uncovering the complex interplay of multiple identities, functions, and narratives combining front-and back-stage performances (Li et al., 2021;Shreffler et al., 2016;Toffoletti & Thorpe, 2018). ...
An athletes’ social media following is a proxy of their popularity and a key metric for brand monetization. Yet, how a following can be grown strategically remains unclear. This research investigates the effects of newly formed brand networks on athlete follower growth during a non-league event with representative teams. We used the sport brand ecosystem framework and examined athlete-related, event-related, and brand-networking-related factors as determinants of follower growth on Instagram.
We collected longitudinal behavioral data, namely social media following and tagging behavior of athletes in the context of Laver Cup, an elite men’s team tennis event. A sociogram was used to visualize brand networking of athletes and the event. The hypotheses were tested using a multiple linear regression with a wild-cluster bootstrap-SE.
Results indicated that the pre-existing size of an athlete’s following and brand networking with athletes’ and the event’s brands through the user tagging function predicted follower growth. This highlights the impact of exposure on social media during an event and the value of brand networking as a brand-building strategy for athletes.
The findings contribute knowledge on athletes’ vertical and horizontal brand relationships. The study uncovers coopetitive relationships between athlete brands and shows that new brand networks, visible through social media user tagging, spur athlete brand growth. To practitioners, this demonstrates that events enable athletes to strengthen their social media brands, which can be amplified through athletes’ large pre-existing social media following and strategic collaborations with other athletes.
... Self-Presentation (SP): the extent to which individuals control how they are perceived by others by carefully selecting information to share. It has been reported that Twitter is used for self-presentation (Lebel and Danylchuk 2012). ...
This study investigates the impact of the perceptions of antisocial behaviour on the use of the social media platform Twitter. We extend the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) with the Perception of Antisocial Behaviour as a risk factor, and two supporting constructs: Strategic Self-Presentation and Protective Self-Presentation. We call this extended model Technology Acceptance and Use under Risk (TAUR). We investigate two groups via an online questionnaire, contrasting Anglophone countries (the UK, USA, and Canada, 200 responses), with Saudi Arabia (540 responses). In both cases the data shows that the Perception of Antisocial Behaviour impacts Twitter use, but not directly, rather it negatively impacts the influence of other factors such as Behavioural Intention – it also shows that this affects Anglophones more than Saudis. This indicates that future work should differentiate between different cultural groups, and different solutions may be needed to assuage users’ fears in different parts of the world.
... Such personal brand management is not necessarily new. In fact, studies have shown that female professional athletes have historically taken on the role of a brand manager (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012;Lobpries et al., 2018). The adoption of this role was due to limited financial resources to hire an agent. ...
With the NCAA's NIL policy changes, many athletes will likely need to solve the issue of brand management, with many of them assuming the role themselves. Taking on this role will likely lead to even more investment in their athlete identity (i.e., role engulfment), which has negative consequences for the athlete (Hatteberg, 2020). Guided by the literature on role engulfment, this article investigates the hidden effects NIL may have on collegiate athletes and their well-being, along with various branding and legal implications.
... Differences have been discovered in the way female and male athletes use social media for promotional purposes (Voráček & Čáslavová, 2019). Among others, Lebel and Danylchuk (2012) noted that female athletes could promote a wider range of brands and products than male athletes. ...
Social media platforms allow athletes to share information with the public. This opportunity is arguably more important for female athletes who traditionally receive less space in the mainstream media than their male counterparts. This article focuses on the social media self-presentation of six successful, internationally recognized, professional Czech female athletes and their fans’ reactions. By using qualitative and quantitative content analyses, it was revealed that throughout the season, the selected athletes presented themselves as powerful professionals, while their off-season posting tended to be more personal and, for the most part, more feminine. Contrary to previous research, fans did not frequently respond with explicitly sexual or negative comments. Moreover, they supported and admired the athletes, and in most cases, reacted positively. A higher sensitivity was indicated in relation to the sportswomen’s personal relationships and opinions. This leads us to the conclusion that social media enables professional female athletes to present themselves more freely than traditional media and be positively received by the public.
... Shmargad (Shmargad, 2018) found that low-ranking candidates and challengers in the 2016 US elections were more likely to gain high voter percentages if they were retweeted by highly influential users like celebrity sportspersons. Another study (Yan, et al., 2018) utilized network analysis around social issue hashtags to also find that athletes display organizational dynamics on Twitter, while other studies have investigated visibility and gendered economies of sport to find differences in the content of tweets of top athletes (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012) (Toffoletti & Thorpe, 2018). While there is a body of work that has investigated the impact of a newly emerging group of influencers i.e. online influencers on social media platforms and the content they disseminate (Bakshy, et al., 2011) (Lalani, et al., 2019) (Dubois & Gaffney, 2014) (Zarei, et al., 2020) (Cha, et al., 2010), there are no large-scale comparative analyses of influential athletes' tweets, specifically analyzing their politics. ...
With the ubiquitous reach of social media, influencers are increasingly central to articulation of political agendas on a range of topics. We curate a sample of tweets from the 200 most followed sportspersons in India and the United States respectively since 2019, map their connections with politicians, and visualize their engagements with key topics online. We find significant differences between the ways in which Indian and US sportspersons engage with politics online-while leading Indian sportspersons tend to align closely with the ruling party and engage minimally in dissent, American sportspersons engage with a range of political issues and are willing to publicly criticize politicians or policy. Our findings suggest that the ownership and governmental control of sports impact public stances on issues that professional sportspersons are willing to engage in online. It might also be inferred, depending upon the government of the day, that the costs of speaking up against the state and the government in power have different socio-economic costs in the US and India.
... As of January 2021, the most popular platforms are Facebook, with 2,740 million users; YouTube, with 2,291 million; Instagram, with 1,221 million; and Twitter, with 353 million (Statista, 2021). These numbers include professional athletes who use social media to communicate with each other or with fans (see e.g., Pegoraro, 2010;Sanderson & Kassing, 2014;Feder, 2020) for self-presentation (see e.g., Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012;Reichart Smith & Sanderson, 2015;Li et al., 2020) as well as for improving their personal brand (see e.g., Geurin, 2017;Su et al., 2020). Similarly, the vast majority of professional sports clubs and competitions or international sports federations use many social media platforms to communicate with the public and craft their image. ...
Using the example of the 2019 inaugural UAE Tour, this study demonstrates how cycling stars indirectly promote countries hosting globally watched sporting events through their Twitter accounts. This study presents a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the Twitter activity of selected cycling stars. However, this promotion is only a secondary result of their activity on social media; professional athletes use their Twitter accounts as a platform for self-presentation and to show their daily lives to fans. If the athletes are active on social media, it is almost impossible for them to avoid speaking about the host countries, indirectly evaluate them, and provide information about them to their followers. While sports celebrities’ social media profiles are a limited space for the promotion of host countries, they can also help improve the image of the countries and present them in a positive light. Of course, political leaders use countless public or sports diplomacy tools to promote their countries abroad, and online platforms are not necessarily a key element in the promotion of their international image.
... However, there is a dearth of research on follower engagement as a method of determining endorser effectiveness through Twitter. Lebel and Danylchuk (2012) suggested additional research on athletes in team sports was needed, while Cork and Eddy (2017, p. 2) argued there remains a "lack of understanding about social media marketing and best practices for measuring outcomes." Moreover, in her review of brand-related communications distributed through social media, Voorveld (2019) recommended that more research was needed on social media influencers, whether micro or macro influencers yield different consumer responses, what factors elucidate these behaviors such as brand mentions, and ethical considerations such as disclosing the commercial nature of sponsored posts. ...
Athletes often use social media to help build their personal brand, communicate with stakeholders, and promote endorsements. Research suggests athletes who elicit greater engagement on social media are more valuable to endorser brands than those who simply have a large number of followers. From a regulatory perspective, it is important for athlete endorsers to disclose the commercial nature of sponsored posts. Therefore, based on Social Influence Theory (SIT), the purpose of this study was to examine Olympic athletes’ follower engagement on social media with a focus on brand mentions and disclosures of the relationships. Utilizing a content analysis of 190 U.S. Olympic athletes’ tweets during the 2018 PyeongChang Games, findings revealed statistically significant differences in follower engagement based on the athlete’s gender. Non-brand related posts received statistically significant greater engagement than brand-related posts, and only 12.90% of the posts that mentioned a brand disclosed a brand relationship. Implications and future research also are discussed.
... Of the 43 articles published since 2012, 22 investigated the athlete or team brand with a focus on social media. Notably, eight of those articles addressed the issue of gender differences (e.g., Geurin-Eagleman and Burch, 2015;Lebel and Danylchuk 2012;Smith and Sanderson 2015) or specifically explored female athlete and team brands (Barnett 2017, Geurin, 2017Lobpries et al. 2018, Sauder and Blaszka 2018, Toffoletti and Thorpe, 2018. The purpose of this study was to examine research on athlete brands to propose strategic directions for future research. ...
... Privacy controls are more important to females than males on social network sites, so the lack of these on Twitter compared to other sites, such as Facebook, may reduce female participation in Twitter (Kuo et al., 2013) and may hide female-associated private issues from Twitter. A study of 69 top-ranked tennis players found the men to focus on being a sports fan whereas the women spent more time on general brand management (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012), showing that specific types of user may have their own gender differences. ...
Purpose
Although gender identities influence how people present themselves on social media, previous studies have tested pre-specified dimensions of difference, potentially overlooking other differences and ignoring nonbinary users.
Design/methodology/approach
Word association thematic analysis was used to systematically check for fine-grained statistically significant gender differences in Twitter profile descriptions between 409,487 UK-based female, male, and nonbinary users in 2020. A series of statistical tests systematically identified 1,474 differences at the individual word level, and a follow up thematic analysis grouped these words into themes.
Findings
The results reflect offline variations in interests and in jobs. They also show differences in personal disclosures, as reflected by words, with females mentioning qualifications, relationships, pets, and illnesses much more, nonbinaries discussing sexuality more, and males declaring political and sports affiliations more. Other themes were internally imbalanced, including personal appearance (e.g. male: beardy; female: redhead), self-evaluations (e.g. male: legend; nonbinary: witch; female: feisty), and gender identity (e.g. male: dude; nonbinary: enby; female: queen).
Research limitations
The methods are affected by linguistic styles and probably under-report nonbinary differences.
Practical implications
The gender differences found may inform gender theory, and aid social web communicators and marketers.
Originality/value
The results show a much wider range of gender expression differences than previously acknowledged for any social media site.
Bu çalışma Türkiye’de kadın futbolcuların Instagram’da benlik sunumu performanslarına odaklanmıştır. Türkiye’de hegemonik yapının devamlılığının sağlanmasında önemli role sahip olan futbolda kadın futbolcuların medyada ve toplumda görünürlüğü oldukça azdır. Kadın futbolcular da var olan benliklerini sunmak veya yeni kimlikler yaratmak için Instagram’ı kullanmaktadır. Bu amaçla Türkiye Milli Kadın Futbol Takımı’nda yer alan 8 kadın futbolcunun Instagram’da paylamış olduğu 1191 hikâye analiz edilmiştir. Bu paylaşımların 451’inin sahne önü, 740’ının ise sahne arkası performanslarına odaklandığı belirlenmiştir. Kadın futbolcular Instagram’da sahne önünde “futbolcu” kimliklerini ön plana çıkarmayı tercih ederek hegemonik mücadele alanı yaratmaktadır. Sahne arkası performanslarında ise daha çok “kişisel yaşamlarına” odaklanan, aile, arkadaş ve kişisel fotoğraflarını paylaşarak sosyo-kültürel yapıyı, bilinmeyen yönlerini ön plana çıkarmayı tercih ermektedir.
Social media allows sport entities (organizations, athletes, coaches, fans, and partnering companies) to reach audiences across the world and create, extend, maintain, and improve their brand equity through constant communication. Brand management and the strategies employed by entities to create effective content that reinforces brand image and brand equity are a common goal among sport marketers. Over the last 20 years, scholars have investigated a wide range of topics in sport social media and branding, yet there is a need to continue to expand the social media brand management literature to address and reflect rapidly changing industry challenges. The purpose of this commentary is to provide a reflection of past academic literature, while critically examining areas in methodology and theory to guide future research. The recommendations of more sophisticated designs, along with a call for experimental designs, qualitative approaches, and critical communication inquiry, among others, are discussed.
Sports brands and properties are using social media platforms to take a stand on controversial social issues. This paper draws on the concept of corporate social advocacy to examine how Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) teams used their social media platforms to communicate about social issues during the 2021 season. We conducted a thematic and semantic analysis of advocacy-related tweets to examine the communicative actions and salient issues across the teams’ accounts. WNBA teams posted about racial justice, women’s empowerment, and LGBTQ+ rights, which represent a shift in the WNBA’s discursive promotional strategies. The findings of the study indicate that WNBA teams’ use of social media to take a stand on social issues aligns with, and extends, conceptualizations of corporate social advocacy. Further, social media advocacy provides insight into the sociocultural significance and the economic viability of women’s sport.
Research focusing on social media usage in sport communication and its related media has made significant strides in the last 2 decades. Researchers have provided key insights into how social media content is created by sport entities and media members, how sport fans and consumers feel about social media content, and how aspects of social media content inform public perception of matters pertaining to race, gender, ethnicity, politics, and other key cultural areas. However, the changing natures of social media technology and user preferences for content have often moved faster than the body of research surrounding them. This commentary highlights a gap in published sport communication studies focusing on dynamic social media content and provides suggestions for addressing a key present, and future, need for scholarly inquiry in the field.
While the topic of athlete welfare has gained significant attention in academic literature, to date there has been a primacy placed on physical settings and their ability to augment or thwart the welfare of athletes. The discourse has, therefore, neglected the advent of social media spaces and their potential to have a significant impact on athlete welfare. Social media platforms are now a vital component in the lives of athletes who are increasingly reliant on maintaining an online presence and following. In this commentary, we consider the scope of social media and its potential impact on the welfare of athletes, particularly female athletes. In doing so, we identify and discuss some of the positive health and well-being outcomes associated with increased online communication and self-representation in social media spaces. We examine the scholarship concerning the threats posed by social media spaces, consider power in virtual environments and its impact on welfare, and finally suggest some future directions for scholarship in this field.
The topics of social media and consumer behavior are inextricably linked. Since 2008, scholars in sport-studies fields such as sport communication and sport management have increasingly focused their research on social media use by sport entities and consumers. This commentary provides an overview of sport social media and consumer behavior scholarship to date, including prominent and growing topics such as consumers’ uses of social media, social media engagement, user segmentation, and user-generated content. A scoping review was conducted to illustrate the current state of research on social media, sport, and consumer behavior. Future research priorities to advance this area of inquiry are also discussed, including more qualitative research resulting in rich and descriptive analyses, the need to better understand Gen Z as sport social media consumers, and the need to understand the connection between social media consumption and purchasing behavior. Finally, the commentary encourages scholars to expand their research focus in geographic contexts outside of North America, on underrepresented groups, such as women’s sport and disability sport, and to adopt new theoretical frameworks for such research.
This study examines and compares the coverage of both the England men's and women's national football teams by their governing body, The Football Association (FA), immediately before, during and immediately following their respective 2020 and 2022 European Championships. Content analysis of two of the FA's official Twitter accounts demonstrates some positive shifts in the general representation of the women's football team. However, concerns remain regarding the FA's social media strategy whereby they promote the women's team through a discrete profile rather than their general Twitter account, which has a much larger following. This paper argues that social media provides governing bodies with an opportunity to effectively promote their women's teams and, as such, organisations hold significant responsibility to achieve this should they wish to see the more equitable promotion of women athletes in the wider media.
With a growing number of people using social media such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, it has become extremely important for professional athletes to build and promote their personal brands through social media. The purpose of this study was to understand how LPGA Tour Korean golfers use social media for self-presentation. Through content analysis, the self-presentation forms of the top six Korean LPGA Tour golfers were examined. The result showed that the golfers are more likely to use the form of the front stage rather than the backstage. The number of likes and comments is higher when golfers post backstage photos and write photo stories in both Korean and English languages on Instagram. This study contributes to the field of sport social media research theoretically with new subcategorization to Goffman’s self-presentation and suggests a new insight into personal brand marketing strategies via social media for both athletes and sponsors.
Several scholars have examined how sport stars and other celebrities establish personal brands on social media, but few studies have used a longitudinal research design to study the self-branding process itself and measure changes in self-branding behaviors over time. Based on a content analysis of 6,240 images posted on Instagram by 112 top-ranked professional disc golfers, this study shows how self-branding is a common practice even among the players of this lesser known sport. Drawing on Goffman’s work on impression management, self-branding is conceptualized as goal-oriented, strategic communication. The players’ uptake in self-branding may be a response to the disc golf industry’s rapid growth and new opportunities to market products on social media. While the study partially supports this perspective, it also reveals an interesting contradiction. Many players engaged in self-branding regardless of their social status or ability to monetize their personas. Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, and capital may help explain why self-branding is so widespread among lifestyle athletes.
With the ubiquitous reach of social media, influencers are becoming increasingly central to the articulation of political agendas on a range of topics. We curate a sample of tweets from the 200 most followed sportspersons in India and the USA since 2019, map their connections with politicians and visualise their engagements with key topics online. We find significant differences between the ways in which Indian and US sportspersons engage with politics—whereas leading Indian sportspersons tend to align closely with the ruling party and engage minimally in dissent, American sportspersons engage with a range of political issues and are willing to publicly criticise politicians or policy. Our findings suggest that the ownership and governmental control of sports affect public stances on issues that professional sportspersons are willing to engage in online. Also, depending on the government of the day, speaking up against the state and the government in power has different socioeconomic costs in the USA and India.
Olympic champions have been real idols for a significant portion of society, and by the advent of social media, their influence has increased rapidly. Despite their impact, they have been less studied. A primary step to grasp their cybercharacter is to examine their Instagram characteristics with possible gender differences and correlations between these characteristics. By applying a data-driven approach, this study utilizes a content analysis method to analyze photos of Olympic gold medalists on Instagram. In this vein, male gold medalists show a monotonously positive relationship between their following/follower ratio and the engagement/follower ratio. Also, the ratio of self-presentation turned out to have a solid monotonous negative relationship with age in both male and female gold medalists, which even takes a linear form in men. In line with the related theories and literature, these findings can help athletes manage and grow their brand on social media.KeywordsInstagramSelf-presentingUser characteristicsOlympicGold medalistsData mining
Purpose: The purpose of the chapter is to overview the sociological literature related to social media and digital technologies in sport, with particular attention to media representations, content production, and audience responses. The chapter examines how social media and digital technologies reproduce and challenge hegemonic representation strategies, while maintaining existing cultural norms in the industry. Further, the chapter evaluates how athletes and fans create digital communities to bring visibility to marginalized groups. Finally, the chapter considers the potential of digital media for social justice and advocacy. Design/methodology/approach: The chapter synthesizes existing literature in sociology of sport, sport communication, and media studies to provide an assessment of the implications of social media and digital technologies for sport. Findings: Scholarship on social media and digital technologies in sport has primarily focused on descriptive analyses. Sociological approaches provide a theoretical grounding for examining issues of power, inequality, and social justice in relation to media ideologies, production, and consumption. Research limitations/implications (if applicable): The chapter identifies future areas of study, including a more robust engagement with theory and an expansion of methodological approaches. Originality/value: The chapter provides an overview of the literature on social media and digital technologies in sport of nearly 80 scholarly publications. The chapter moves beyond focusing on patterns in content to consider how structures, journalistic practices, cultural norms, and audience interactions collectively shape ideologies about gender, race, sexuality, religion, and disability in the sport media industry.
Purpose: This chapter outlines the extent to which the traditional characteristics of masculinity in sport-initially played out in sports stadia and the traditional media in the late nineteenth and throughout most of the twentieth century-are now also a feature of social media and digital technology platforms in the twenty-first century. At the outset, this chapter discusses the historical association between masculinity and sporting competition and how this has played an important role in presenting a normative heterosexual identity amongst players, fans, and the traditional media. The chapter then discusses the introduction of social media and digital technology platforms and the impact this history is having in these rapidly consumed spaces, with a particular focus on language, such as hate speech.
Design/methodology/approach: This chapter examines and discusses a myriad of literature from inside and outside of academia that explores masculinity, sport, and/or the internet. These discussions are backgrounded within a historical context and connected to contemporary examples.
Findings: Social media and digital technology platforms have provided opportunities for athletes, the media, and fans, to engage in more of an active debate on masculinity in sport than existed in the twentieth century. However, the chapter also addresses the traditional characteristics of masculinity that remain in the culture of sport and in online environments, especially surrounding hate speech.
Originality/value: This chapter, while engaging in an emerging topic of discussion, offers important recommendations for future research and the ways in which this can be methodologically carried out on the internet on a variety of topic areas surrounding masculinity in sport from a sociological perspective.
Based on content analysis of 370 posts featuring sportswomen and 205 posts featuring nonathlete women on ESPN’s and espnW’s Instagram accounts, the authors address whether representations of sportswomen on social media uphold or challenge masculine domination in sports and whether this varies based on the gender of the target audience for each social media account. Catering to a predominantly male audience, ESPN’s Instagram rarely posted about sportswomen or feminism, reinforced traditional female gender roles, and relied on feminine stereotypes more frequently than espnW’s Instagram. Nonetheless, espnW upholds male dominance in sport through its separation from ESPN, the lower volume of posts about sportswomen on espnW compared with ESPN’s coverage of sportsmen, and its less engaging coverage of sportswomen.
Some athletes have attracted millions of audiences, even if being namely recognised. Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar JR., and David Beckham have the most Instagram followers on a global scale. Online Social Networks (OSN) allow users to establish their profiles to communicate with others through actions such as follows and comments. Currently, athletes prefer to utilise Instagram for self-branding purposes. Therefore, many studies have examined their practices. From the rising of Model of Athlete Brand Image MABI offline practices to the development of online athlete branding consumers' engagements on social media, many studies have concerned three main categories to build athlete brand image, namely Athletic performance, Attractive appearance, and Marketable lifestyles. As a Saudi female personal trainer who uses Instagram to build a brand image, this auto-ethnography aims to reflect on my personal experiences, including cultural aspects that affect athlete branding strategies. Athlete branding studies have not focused on cultural differences yet. Most Muslim Saudi women are culturally conservative; they cover their bodies in public as a religious practice. This qualitative study describes my own experiences and Instagram visual content selections. It attempts to understand the motives, outcomes, and online self-presentation challenges and strategies of Muslim female exercisers who aim to build their athlete brand image. A key result indicated that the Attractive appearance category was not applicable in the self-presentation of a Muslim female athlete in her athlete branding strategies. The trainer encountered some cultural challenges, for instance, religious values such as veiling and gender segregation, which conflict with the ability to rely on the self-characteristics for branding. Therefore, other strategies were applied, such as presenting body composition before and after test results and testimonials for clients.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.