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The Strengths and Struggles of Women in Social Sports Media


Social media changed sports media. The development of Twitter and Facebook allowed for instant content sharing and digital communication between athletes, reporters and consumers, but the new media also created a new platform for cyberbullying, hate speech hand harassment. New jobs formed around social media, and other jobs changed to meet the new audience demands.

In April of 2016, Julie DiCarlo, a sports radio host, and Sarah Spain, an ESPNW contributor and co-radio cost, created a video that ultimately went viral; they had men read out tweets that had been sent to them on social media to their face. Throughout the video, the men, who were not the original authors of the tweet, winced and hesitated as they read the crude and hateful messages directed at the women. Social media has created a platform where readers (and non-readers) can express themselves in any way they see fit, but “More than Mean” reminded people that someone is always on the other end of those messages, and one person’s words can have a big impact.

Rachel Axon, a sports journalist for USA Today, said Twitter raises free speech questions and also serves a deterrent for women thinking about entering the sports journalism industry.

“I don’t think it’s the biggest barrier, but I think one of the biggest stressors is the way women in sports media are treated online. We have our own support group of ‘you are getting killed on Twitter, don’t let it get to you,’” Axon said. “I know that there is great push to make the social media platforms more accountable.”

Twitter and Facebook give a voice to all members of society, creating a rise of citizen journalism and hate speech. However, social media also allows for the spread of ideas and a diverse marketplace of thought. Roger Pielke, a professor of environmental science and sports governance at the University of Colorado-Boulder, said that Twitter empowers individual athletes to have a voice, but he does note that the bullying is prevalent. For Axon, the harassment seen on social media makes her hesitate when deciding whether or not she thinks the new platform is an advantage.

“What has evolved for women in this job, women on the internet, is that there is a lot of harassment, vile language,” Axon. “That used to be a lot, weekly, now it’s daily.”

Axon does admit that Twitter has some advantages, and allows writers to connect with readers in a new way, but social media and the harassment faced by women stood out as one of her major concerns about the way sports media has changed for women in the last decade.

Hemal Jhaveri, another USA Today Sports employee, works as the senior social media editor for the company, and said the benefits of social media for women are multifaceted, but one of the primary benefits of the new platform is that it removes the gatekeepers in sports journalism, who have, for so long, been exclusively male.

“I think it’s helped,” Jhaveri said. “It’s provided a whole new avenue, barriers of entry have been controlled by men. With social media, there is no barrier.” Pielke agreed with Jhaveri that social media has helped give a voice to members of the general public, a process that he considers to be a “democratizing of sports.”

“You don’t have to go through Sports Illustrated or ESPN, it’s globalized in a way that it wasn’t before,” he said. “It’s opened up new voices and personalities.”

For those new to the social media lifestyle, such as Carole Oglesby, a former professor and current advisor to several women’s groups, the decision to embrace the new media can be hard, but Oglesby said she has adapted to becoming social media savvy and now uses the sites to her advantage.

“I think social media helps in large part, I am not of the Millennial generation, this is not natural to me, but I am on Facebook an hour an hour a half a day,” Olgsbey said. “I run three or four groups, and I’m trying to inundate media source that crossing through people’s eyes to the brain, inundate them with women’s sports.”

Sports media on social platforms poses threats to those in the business, but the tools can also be used to further the voice of women and female athletes in a way that could help produce more mainstream media coverage of women in sports.


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