Reframing Surfing: Physical Culture in Online Spaces

Abstract

The social media app Instagram has become a popular everyday way to share visual representations of surfing culture and experiences. Providing an alternative to mainstream surf media, images posted on Instagram by women who surf recreationally both disrupt and reinforce the existing sexualisation and differentiation of women in surf culture. Images themselves are not necessarily resistant, yet women are asserting themselves as a voice of surf cultural authority through processes of posting, sharing and engaging with images. While ‘big data’ research about Instagram is proving useful in terms of mapping spaces and movements, this article adopts an ethnographic approach to explore the notion that social media developments are changing possible ways of knowing and representing the world in which we live. Also considered is how lived experiences and social media shape each other in everyday lives and communities.

Communication Practices and Social Tie Formation: A Case Study of Recreational Lifestyle Sports Cultures

“…The results of this case study support earlier findings on CMC in lifestyle sports (Dumont, 2014(Dumont, , 2015Jones, 2011;MacKay & Dallaire, 2012;Olive, 2015;Woermann, 2012) by showing that for the studied population, social media practices have integrated with the physical activity. Practitioners consume, produce, and share information, entertainment, and experiences online.…”

“…Recreational practitioners frequently follow sports-related social media content, and occasionally post or share content online. When compared to previous studies on content production and sharing, the quantitative findings of this study indicate that, on a larger scale, these activities may not be as common and frequent as previous qualitative studies (e.g., Jones, 2011;Olive, 2015;Woermann, 2012) on lifestyle sports suggest.…”

“…Reviewed studies on lifestyle sports strongly agree that the use of social media has been integrated into sports practice. Physical experiences and social media shape each other as practitioners increasingly and continuously share and consume media products (Dumont, 2014;Hutchins, 2011;Jones, 2011;MacKay & Dallaire, 2012;Olive, 2015;Woermann, 2012). In this process, the line separating producer and consumer is fading.…”

“…Similarly, Jones (2011) and MacKay and Dallaire (2012) study skateboarders, Dumont (2014) climbers, and Olive (2015) surfers with the focus on production and consumption of self-produced material online. Reviewed studies on lifestyle sports strongly agree that the use of social media has been integrated into sports practice.…”

The Professionalization of Action Sports: Mapping Trends and Future Directions

“…Indeed, companies increasingly include social media use as a condition of sponsorship contracts, where the amount of the latter can be leveraged by the amount of followers (Dumont 2017a). In this context, action sport researchers are increasingly acknowledging the important role of social media in action sport cultures and industries and the radical changes in athletes' social media use as a form of prosumption (Woermann 2013), for self-branding and generating and engaging with their 'communities' of followers (Gilchrist and Wheaton 2013;Olive 2015;Thorpe 2017a). Yet few have explored the power relationships involved in such processes, or how the sponsor-athlete-agent relationship informs the social media strategies being employed by action sport athletes.…”