Sports reporters in the Twittersphere: Challenging and breaking down traditional conceptualizations of genderlect

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of a dual medium/content context – the one offered by the online Twitter communication (medium-context) of reporting on elite sports (content-context) – on traditional conceptualizations of genderlect.

A quantitative content analysis, coding for a variety of traditional gendered language markers – was conducted on the tweets of male and female reporters who covered the men’s and women’s NCAA final four basketball tournaments.

Consistent with tenets of social role theory, the duel medium/content context of Twitter and sports produces several language patterns that frustrate attempts to categorize language markers according to traditional conceptualizations of genderlect and thus provides support for a redefinition of genderlect.

This paper’s findings suggest that people adapt their communication patterns to match the context in which they communicate. Whether adaptation takes place with conscious effort or as a natural byproduct of moving from one context to another remains to be discovered. Advice to female sports journalists on being vigilant against unwittingly undermining their credibility and perceived expertise is offered. This inquiry allows researchers to study sociology through sport.

This paper demonstrates that online environments can allow for traditional gender roles and expectations to be challenged and broken down, but some genderlect features appear tenacious and could undermine attempts to break down gender barriers.

If sport mirrors society, then the same communication adaptations that appear in the online environmental context of reporters’ tweets about sport should appear in other societal contexts.

Few studies have investigated differences in reporting by gender, and fewer have investigated differences in sports reporting by gender. Fewer, if any, have investigated differences in sports reporting by gender through Twitter.