“Pretty Disgusted Honestly”: Exploring Fans’ Affective Responses on Facebook to the Modified Rules of Australian Football League Women’s

Abstract

In this article, we argue that the “turn to affect” can provide a generative framework for working through key sticking points for women in sport. Through an analysis of the rule changes and subsequent social media comments in the lead-up to the inaugural Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW) competition, we demonstrate the power of emotions for intensifying and resisting discussion about women’s participation in male-dominated sport, as they accumulate through fan encounters on social media. Through a focus on the expression of emotions such as disappointment and contempt, we interrogate the collective workings of digital affects for constituting gendered knowledge production and subjectivity in sport contexts. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of feminist thinking for sport research and practice.

“The World Cup of Empowerment” and “They Really Missed the Ball”: Gender Discourses at the 2019 Women’s World Cup

“…This analysis suggests the value of integrating discourse analysis with a focus on affect and emotion given that tournament discourses were intended to produce collective emotional responses among spectators and frequently did so. As Pavlidis et al (2022) argue, "This [focus on affect] is not to turn away from discourse analysis and other perspectives, but offers an extension of these approaches as a way of considering those visceral, felt, intensities that exceed textual signification" (p. 104).…”

“…A focus on gender discourse is important given the visibility and influence of the ideas and stories disseminated through sport mega-events, as well as persistent gender inequality in professional sport and efforts to combat it. In addition, fans’ critical responses to sport organizations’ narratives have found powerful public expression, especially through social media, marking fans as important agents of change in the status of women's sport (Cleland, 2010; Numerato, 2018; Pavlidis et al, 2022). Yet fan (or consumer) responses to gender discourse on the part of sport organizations have been understudied relative to production (Brice & Andrews, 2019; Posbergh et al, 2023).…”

“…Yet fan (or consumer) responses to gender discourse on the part of sport organizations have been understudied relative to production (Brice & Andrews, 2019; Posbergh et al, 2023). Theoretically, I integrate a focus on neoliberal postfeminism with the concepts of affect and emotion to illustrate how gender discourses circulate particular affects, or collective emotional responses, as a way of deepening connections to neoliberal postfeminist positions (Pavlidis & Fullagar, 2012; Pavlidis et al, 2022). I show fans’ complex engagements with postfeminist tournament discourses of empowerment and progress and their associated emotive states, from adoption and celebration to their own discourse of inequality that circulates frustration to highlight the perceived hypocrisy of FIFA and related entities.…”

Nonsport narratives, fan production, and affective discourse in girls and women eSports fandom: An alternative construction of pro-gaming in China

“…For instance, Avner et al (2023) unpacked the interconnections between identity, affect/emotions and sports performance. Foregrounding affect in studies of gendered workings of power in women's sports, Pavlidis et al (2022) reviewed the notion of the relationality of "affective practice" (Pavlidis and Fullagar, 2016;Wetherell, 2013) and emphasized the power of affect in women's participation and performance in male-dominated sports. Pope (2012), from the perspectives of female football fans, proposed a quadrant of female fans by improving on the classification of soccer spectators' identities.…”

The Global Business of Sport in a Brave New World: Conceptualising a Framework for Alternative Futures

“…That is, since men's sport is currently the key driver of the global sport economy, it was viewed and treated as an “essential” industry by governments, broadcasters and corporate sponsors. What is perhaps most unfortunate is the fact that there were pockets of women's sport that were beginning to thrive with respect to participation and spectator numbers, media coverage and corporate sponsorship (Willson et al, 2018 ; Toffoletti and Palmer, 2019 ; Pavlidis et al, 2020 ). On this note there is some optimism.…”