Social Media as a direct source of feminist communication: Social support for Jennifer Hermoso

Abstract

At a social moment in which feminism is being debated in many social spheres, the world of sport is no stranger to this situation. Sports communication still does not include women as the focus of the news, not even in the new digital communication environments. Because of this, sportswomen, thanks to the new journalistic routines of social media, have begun to use the networks as media through which to disseminate their own information. This has caused them to become direct sources of information. Therefore, the aim of this research is to identify and analyse the responses received by the Spanish national soccer team player Jennifer Hermoso to the official statement published on X.com denouncing the conduct of the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales. Following a mixed methodology, combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, it is evaluated how many comments are positive, negative or neutral and the degree of positivity and negativity of each of them. The results show that the response to the publication of the athlete has been mostly positive, although the negative messages have been mainly insults with high levels of negativity. In short, this research is an example of contemporary social cyberfeminism that shows a change in social discourse, as it manifests a supportive response, breaking with the hatred that sportswomen have historically received, and in a majority way, in social media.