The Effects of Gender on Perceptions of Team Twitter Feeds

Abstract

As social media use by professional sport teams continues to grow, understanding who is using these outlets is crucial in order to best communicate with users. What has yet to be thoroughly examined is gender differences in usage of team Twitter feeds. By surveying fans from a variety of teams, this study examined gender differences in ratings of informational, commercial, and social interactions with the team’s Twitter feed, along with examining any demographic differences and usage of social-media enabled smartphones. Contrary to what previous research on sport media consumption would suggest, females rated nearly all Twitter functions at higher levels than did males, and were more active with smartphone usage while in attendance at games. These results point to a number of practical and theoretical implications,and to a new realization of the social media audience and female fan computer-mediated media usage in relation to professional sport teams.

Keywords: social media, twitter, sport, communication, new media