Social Media, Digital Technology, and Masculinity in Sport

Abstract

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 among 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 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.

Citation

Cleland, J. and MacDonald, C. (2022), "Social Media, Digital Technology, and Masculinity in Sport", Sanderson, J. (Ed.) Sport, Social Media, and Digital Technology (Research in the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 15), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 49-66. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1476-285420220000015007