Toxicity Within the Women's Sport Social Media Discourse

Abstract

By applying a multidimensional approach, the purpose of this integrated article thesis was to explore the prevalence of toxicity within the women’s sport social media (SM) discourse. Specifically, the study sought to uncover how toxicity manifested in online networks as well as the influence of this activity on the fan experience and their behaviours. Two theoretical frameworks were adopted to understand toxicity from multiple lenses, including network theory and (digital) imagined communities as they pertain to the women’s sport context on SM. Results from the research revealed several key aspects; first, in relation to the volume of posts collected from two SM platforms, toxicity rates were considerably high for the women’s sport leagues. Second, when discussing the fan experience within women’s sport online communities, the presence of toxic activity was noted by participants but, it did not negatively affect their continued use of or intentions to interact in these spaces. Rather, fans in the study increased engagement on SM to continue supporting women’s sport despite the potential for toxic reaction. The findings are promising for the future of women’s sport as some fans are becoming more deliberately involved in online spaces thus, offering insights for sport practitioners. Deeper theoretical and conceptual understanding of the dark elements of SM is provided and the study further highlighted the utility of adopting multiple frameworks in complement to explore a complex issue across various other online discourses.