Sport Management Journal

Identifying and Prioritizing the Functions of Instagram from the Point of View of Professional Female Athletes

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Hanyeh Qollami 1
Saeed Sadeghi Boroujerdi 1
Abed Mahmoudian 1
Hesam Kamanger 2

1 Department of Physical Education, Faculty of Humanities and social sciences, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran

2 Department of Sport Management, Faculty of Physical education and sports sciences, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22059/jsm.2023.350885.3053
Abstract
Introduction: The current research was conducted with the aim of identifying and prioritizing the functions of Instagram from the point of view of professional female athletes.
Methods: The method of the present research is mixed and of the type of sequential exploratory design. The qualitative phase was conducted using thematic analysis method and the quantitative phase was conducted using the hierarchical analysis approach. The sampling method was purposeful. In the qualitative part, a semi-structured and in-depth interview was conducted with 13 participants until theoretical saturation. In the quantitative part, a researcher-made questionnaire was distributed among 10 participants in order to prioritize the themes of the qualitative part. In order to analyze the data, NVivo software was used in the qualitative part and Expert Choice software was used in the quantitative part.
Results: The findings showed that the functions of Instagram for female athletes include 49 primary concepts in 9 sub-themes in order of priority; social function (with a weight of 0.13), information (with a weight of 0.12), entertainment (with a weight of 0.11), economic function (with a weight of 0.11), interaction (with a weight of 0.11), education and Information acquisition (with a weight of 0.10), psychological function (with a weight of 0.10), promotion of the field (with a weight of 0.10) and self-expression (with a weight of 0.09) are categorized.
Conclusion: According to the obtained results, it can be stated that sports organizations, managers and agencies and sports marketing consultants and the athletes themselves should consider the production of professional content for the virtual pages of female athletes in order to implement identification functions, Provided and facilitate the field of benefit and achieve positive marketing outcomes.

Keywords

Social media
Championship sports
Sports organizations
professional athletes
Mixed research
Subjects
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Sport Management Journal
Volume 16, Issue 4
Autumn 2024
Pages 70-52

  • Receive Date 07 November 2022
  • Revise Date 03 September 2023
  • Accept Date 25 September 2023

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