Athletes as Advocates: Influencing Eating-Disorder Beliefs and Perceptions Through Social Media

Abstract

The present study aimed to explore the interactions and influences that occurred on Twitter after Joey Julius’s (NCAA athlete, Penn State Football) and Mike Marjama’s (MLB player, Seattle Mariners) eating-disorder (ED) diagnoses were revealed. Corresponding with the publicizing of each athlete’s ED, all publicly tagged Twitter media using @joey_julius, Joey Julius, @MMarjama, and Mike Marjama were collected using Netlytic software and analyzed. Text analysis revealed that the conversation was supportive and focused on feelings and size. Social network analysis, based on 5 network properties, showed that Joey Julius invoked a larger conversation but that both athletes’ conversations were single sided. Athlete advocacy on social media should be further explored, as it may contribute to changing societal opinion regarding social issues such as EDs.

Modeling Social Network of Professional Sports Athletes Based on Machine Learning Algorithms

“…Fransen et al examined the relationship between the perceived quality of athlete leadership and the effectiveness of elite sports teams [2]. Mitchell et al aimed to explore the interaction and impact of tweets following an athlete's diagnosis of an eating disorder [3]. Hatteberg investigated the perceived utility of support received from significant others, similar others, and individuals with similar experiences through interviews with college athletes [4].…”

Sosyal Medya Bozukluğu: Üniversite Öğrencileri Üzerine Bir Araştırma

“…Ancak, literaturde sosyal medya bağımlılığı bir davranışsal bağımlılık olarak değerlendirilmektedir (Griffiths ve Szabo, 2014;Kuss ve Griffiths, 2011). İlgili literatür incelendiğinde farklı alanlarda farklı çalışmaların, Savcı ve ark., (2018); Akkaya ve Zerenler (2017); Sarıçam ve Adam-Karduz (2018); Ünlü (2018); Çiftçi (2018); Lim ve An (2018); Mitchell, Santarossa ve Woodruff, (2018); Göksel ve Serarslan (2015), yapıldığı görülmektedir.…”

Role Model or Quitter? Social Media’s Response to Simone Biles at Tokyo 2020

“…• Focus on media framing and athlete mental health is an emerging field (Cassilo, 2020;Cassilo & Kluch, 2021;Parrott et al, 2019), whereas research into athlete mental health through bottom-up framing is extremely limited -perceptions of eating disorders on (Mitchell et al, 2018).…”