Digital Media Sport by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

As is evidenced by this case, social media enable fans to participate in the framing of athlete identity, a capability that historically rested in the hands of the mass media. However, with the ability to generate and disseminate content, fans now play a role in creating the narratives that contribute to athlete identities. This is an important mechanism that athletes can use to promote favorable public representations.

Implications

Fans protect their own identities as well as those of athletes through social media. These practices have many implications, several of which are now discussed. First, social networking sites create opportunities for increased surveillance of athletes and sports figures. With compact cellular phones that possess advanced photographic, audio and video technology, fans who encounter athletes can document and broadcast information and pictures that can find and place athletes in compromising positions. For instance, Sanderson (2009) profiled three instances where professional athletes’ off-the-field activities were captured by fans and transmitted via the Internet. Each of these athletes received a public rebuke from the sports organization for which they played, and fan agreement with these sanctions was overwhelming. Perhaps the most vivid account chronicled involved Matt Leinart, who at the time played quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals. In April 2008, photos taken at a party at Leinart’s home were posted on thedirty.com (a site that openly asks for people to send them photos of celebrities that depict them partying, drunk or involved in unflattering behavior). These photos included Leinart in a hot tub with several young women, as well as holding a beer bong, the contents of which the women were consuming. The Cardinals issued a stern rebuke to Leinart and sports journalists questioned how seriously he took his “vocation”. Comments posted on the Arizona Republic’s website indicated that a number of fans supported the censure of Leinart, including:

When you are paid tens of millions to do a job, you had better be working on it year round. His work ethic has always been questioned, and his constant pics on the Hollywood/Scottsdale scene prove his ethics. I don’t care if he is 25, I don’t care if he is single-he is paid to be a professional. You don’t see Manning doing this, Brady, etc-why? They take their profession serious.

(Sanderson, 2009, p. 250)

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