Does Race Belong on Sports Blogs? Solidarity and Racial Discourse in Online Baseball Fan Forums

Abstract

Sport scholars have produced prolific research examining the nexus of sport, communication, and race, but this research typically centers on media content and not on fans’ engagement with that content. As sports blogs grow in popularity, it is important to understand their role in facilitating fan communication about important social issues like race. This article examines how sporting ideologies interact with the unique context of interactive blogging spaces to influence fan discourse about race, ethnicity, and sport. By examining blog content and fan discussions on seven interactive baseball blogs, I show that social expectations of sports blogs typically discouraged racial discourse, thus upholding the racial status quo. When discussions about race occurred, they proceeded differently depending on the blogging environment. Fans were hostile when discussing race in blogging environments that didn’t encourage social solidarity. If blogging environments were structured to generate community solidarity, fans were more likely to politely dismiss race or to joke about the topic, though they did show some potential for substantial, meaningful conversations about race. This research underscores the importance of understanding how unique interactive contexts of new media spaces and broader cultural meanings work together to shape fan communication about sport.