Arab Athletes’ Gender Displays as a Form of Self-Presentation on Instagram during Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics

Abstract

Drawing on Goffman’s (1959, 1979) influential work on self-presentation and gender displays, this study was designed to analyze the differences between Arab athletes’ self-presentation on social media based on gender. It used content analysis to examine the self-presentation styles of Arab athletes of both genders by analyzing photographs and captions on Instagram. Surprisingly, this study did not find a difference between Arab male and female athletes regarding gender displays. The vast majority of the pictures of both genders did not suggest sexual activity. This study extends the literature by analyzing Arab athletes’ self-presentation across gender, comparing males’ and females’ self-Presentation on Instagram during Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. Contrary to previous research that noted that female athletes emphasize sexuality on Instagram, we argue that Arab female athletes used Instagram to create a contemporary image of sporting femininity image as enabled, empowered, and strongly individualized. As women’s representation in sports media coverage seems to remain at a disadvantage compared with men’s, social media can be exploited as an effective tool for Arab female athletes to redress this shortage of coverage and challenge the normative gender and sexual identities in sports.