Two years ago, Cassidy Hettesheimer was struck by the challenges female athletes in “adventure” sports face in marketing themselves to fans and sponsors. At the time, the journalism major was interning at the Cascadia Daily News in Washington, where her insights stayed with her.
Hettesheimer, a fourth-year student who also holds a certification from UGA's Carmical Sports Media Institute, said he will interview mountain bikers, cross-country skiers, kayakers and two mountaineers under the supervision of Welch Suggs. I worked on an independent research project for nearly two years. Deputy Director of the Institute. Next, she conducted a qualitative analysis of the interview transcripts, looking for emerging themes about how athletes use social media and their perceptions of social media use.
This week, she will be honored with the Best Student Paper Award at the Communication and Sports Summit in Los Angeles.
Ms. Hettesheimer's paper, “Outdoors and online: A gender analysis of how female adventure athletes use social media,” focuses on the role social media plays in the professional and personal lives of female adventure athletes. I'm guessing. She also found that while social media offers clear benefits for marketing and promotion, the platform can also subject athletes to feelings of unwanted comparison and sexism.
“There was a common agreement that without some form of social media, like Instagram or TikTok, it would be more difficult to be in the sport that they are in today and it would be a sustainable career,” Hettesheimer said. said. , Foundation Fellow at UGA.
Because adventure sports receive less traditional media attention than mainstream sports such as football, basketball, and tennis, many female adventure sports athletes rely on the marketing power of social media to sustain their careers.
Hettesheimer explained that in solo adventure sports, athlete pay is often less structured, with some athletes competing without a team contract and prize money fluctuating based on performance. Therefore, sponsorship is a way to bring in a more stable income. A strong presence on Instagram and his TikTok allows the solo athlete to gain brand partnerships and ultimately maintain a sustainable career.
Another theme that emerged from Hettesheimer's conversation was that athletes are using social media as a space to foster community and provide guidance to young girls and women.
However, despite the obvious benefits of social media, the athletes interviewed also expressed that they are susceptible to feelings of comparison and body dissatisfaction. They pointed to the pressure of trying to grow a following to support an athlete's career while balancing content decisions due to the potential for oversexualization online. One of the athletes estimates that 80% of her followers are men.
“Social media has its advantages and disadvantages for athletes, just like for any other user,” Hettesheimer said. “But there is another layer to how they feel they need to be ‘online’ because of the economic potential of the platform.”
Hettesheimer will present a paper on the panel “Sport as a Challenge to Gender Norms'' on Saturday, March 16th at 9am.
“Cassidy beat out a lot of PhDs. Her students won this award, and it was her first experience conducting such in-depth qualitative research,” Suggs said. “This is an international conference that brings together top scholars in the field and I am really proud of Cassidy for presenting a paper of this quality.”
After graduation in May, Hettesheimer will head to Minnesota to intern with the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
author: Jackson Schroeder, Jackson.Schroeder@uga.edu
