Women, Social Media, and Sport

Abstract

Globally, the digital media has played a key role in generating attention, creating controversy and showcasing changes in media coverage of women’s sports. Social media have made sports coverage an interpersonal, intercultural and international public domain. For the news media, however, the values used to cover and construct representation women athletes and women’s sports have not changed. An historic overview of media coverage of women’s sports is compared with today’s digitized, diversified and globalized sports coverage. The Olympics provide a media microcosm to explore gender equity in sports reporting.