Women’s football subculture of misogyny: The escalation to online gender-based violence
Fenton, Alex Ahmed, Wasim Hardey, Maz Boardman, Rosy Kavanagh, Emma
Fenton, Alex
Ahmed, Wasim
Hardey, Maz
Boardman, Rosy
Kavanagh, Emma
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2024-07
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Abstract
Given the global expansion of women's football and its significant social media presence, it is vital to investigate fan culture and perspectives. This article examines how fans react to the rising visibility of female athletes on TikTok.
Our goal is to assist other scholars interested in examining complex platforms and how gender-based violence literature enables us to explore broader social concerns such as privacy and security. The present study answers a call by Dá-Lameiras and Rodrguez-Castro (2021) for empirical research into newer digital video social media channels and women’s football. We, therefore, post the following research questions:
RQ 1 How do fans react to women’s football on TikTok in the framing of gender-based violence?
RQ2 How can brands respond to gender-based violence on TikTok?
We investigated these topics through a netnography (Kozinets 2020) in which researchers used immersive data operation to study women's football on TikTok. We studied (2) English Premier League football (EPL) clubs’ use of social media in the United Kingdom and situated it within the context of gender sports studies politics. More specifically, text and video were analysed, but primarily fan text comments/responses to videos were examined as this was the primary fan response mode. We kept a netnography team digital immersion journal over seven months containing screenshots, field notes in text and video. The study examined public posts on TikTok and gained University ethical approval (see also Fig 1). We used an inductive approach to examine all posts. Our findings provide fresh insights by identifying themes from social media responses to women's football and providing brand recommendations pertaining to gender- based violence.
The study set out to investigate how the EPL represents and promotes female football players on social media and how professional women football players are perceived as “sporting topics” (Jones, 2008). We were particularly interested in how fans (re)construct women footballers’ identities and the fan-based mentality at play here, revealing what we perceive as vulnerabilities when these athletes are made available via social media. The study raises questions of how these clubs navigate the complexities and contradictions inherent in sports regarding how women are empowered individually while also being used as targets for harassment. It contributes to and expands on current studies on how football teams and their fans utilise social media to represent, promote, and advertise themselves and their sport, particularly emphasising the identities of female players featured in their content. We identify the escalation of gender- based violence on social media against women players. Academics interested in analysing complex platforms such as TikTok and the ways in which gender-based violence literature enables us to analyse broader social issues such as privacy and security will find our research useful.
Citation
Ahmed, W., Fenton, A., Hardey, M., Boardman, R., & Kavanagh, E. (2023). Women’s football subculture of misogyny: The escalation to online gender-based violence. In R. V., Kozinets, U. Gretzel, A. Fenton, R. Gambe, C. Vasilica & W. Ahmed (Eds.), NETNOCON 2023: Building Bridges. Association for Netnographic Research.
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Association for Netnographic Research
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9798991091305
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