Systematic Sexism: Women’s Sports News in a Circle of Gatekeepers and Users on Twitter

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to determine how conventional and digital sports content producers in Turkey present women’s sports news on Twitter, as well as “how much, where, how, why, and when” these stories are shared, as well as “who” the Twitter users are and “what” are they saying in their comments. Between June 25 and July 31, 2022, a sample of Twitter accounts and tweets were reviewed. It was found that 3.41% (n = 612) of the 17,932 sports news items examined were reserved for women’s sports news. It was discovered that the gatekeepers in the news employed language that highlight failure, sexism, and personal life as well as instructive and successful expressions in women’s sports news. Additionally, 85.54% (n = 888) of the comments included comments about women’s bodies, sexist stereotypes, and compared negative expressions. The majority of the comments (n = 1038) on female sports news studied on Twitter were posted by male users (n = 962). The language users use in their comments on sports news on Twitter, presented by traditional and digital sports content producers, support the patriarchal and dominant structure in the world of sports and sports media.

Keywords

Twitter gatekeeper women’s sports news gendering masculine language

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