Self-Representations of Women’s Sport Fandom on Instagram at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate how fans of women’s sport are using Instagram to self-represent their fandom. It uses the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup (WWC) as a case study to examine the ways in which fans at a women’s sport event express their fandom through images and to consider the social and political dimensions of using Instagram for promoting women’s sport. Instagram pictures containing the event-related hashtags #FIFAWWC, #LiveYourGoals, #SheBelieves, and #CanadaRed were collected over the tournament duration. From a content analysis of 3,605 images, the authors argue that visual networked platforms are facilitating online communication conventions within sport fan communities that function as forms of social presence to legitimate women’s participation as fans and generate visibility for women’s sport. By demonstrating that the production and sharing of visual content related to sport events have become important features of the contemporary sport fan experience, this article advocates for greater recognition of social media practices alongside conventional measures of sport fan engagement.