Author's Note

Social media plays an essential role in everyday life, but it can be an effective tactic, specifically in sports. Sports have been a big part of my life when I was a kid; whether it's watching the UConn women's basketball team or watching my favorite NFL team, it is clear that there is different treatment from the media when it comes to gender. As I got older, I heard the news about the USA women’s national soccer team fighting for equal pay, and still, at my age, they are still fighting this battle. There has been plenty of research based on athletes themselves but never about women who work in the sports industry. Now a senior in college looking into my career, sports journalism is an interest of mine. Females have been the underdog in the sports industry for as long as I can remember. Being an athlete myself and working behind the scenes in internships, I have seen every side.

Narrowing down my research to females and male sports journalists on Instagram creates a new perspective that really hasn’t been done. While there has been a significant change for women in the past years, there is much more room for improvement. Creating new information and statistics to prove males still dominant in the industry will allow people to understand the impact sports journalists can have on the industry, not only for female journalists themselves but also for women sports. The power behind social media allows female sports journalists to use their platforms to make the change happen in sports.