Skip to main content

The Olympic Gold Medalists on Instagram: A Data Mining Approach to Study User Characteristics

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Computer Networks, Big Data and IoT

Abstract

Olympic champions have been real idols for a significant portion of society, and by the advent of social media, their influence has increased rapidly. Despite their impact, they have been less studied. A primary step to grasp their cybercharacter is to examine their Instagram characteristics with possible gender differences and correlations between these characteristics. By applying a data-driven approach, this study utilizes a content analysis method to analyze photos of Olympic gold medalists on Instagram. In this vein, male gold medalists show a monotonously positive relationship between their following/follower ratio and the engagement/follower ratio. Also, the ratio of self-presentation turned out to have a solid monotonous negative relationship with age in both male and female gold medalists, which even takes a linear form in men. In line with the related theories and literature, these findings can help athletes manage and grow their brand on social media.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 189.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Bodaghi, A.: A novel pervasive computing method to enhance efficiency of walking activity. Heal. Technol. 6, 269–276 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Frederick, E.L., Lim, C.H., Clavio, G., Walsh, P.: Why we follow: an examination of parasocial interaction and fan motivations for following athlete archetypes on Twitter. Int. J. Sport Commun. 5, 481–502 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Rui, J.R., Stefanone, M.A.: Strategic image management online. Inf. Commun. Soc. 16, 1286–1305 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Karg, A., Lock, D.: Using new media to engage consumers at the Football World Cup. In S. Frawley, D. Adair (Eds.), Managing the Football World Cup. Palgrave MacMillan, Melbourne (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Lebel, K., Danylchuk, K.: How tweet it is: a gendered analysis of professional tennis players’ self-presentation on Twitter. Int. J. Sport Commun. 5, 461–480 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. DeAndrea, D.C., Walther, J.B.: Attributions for inconsistencies between online and offline self-presentations. Commun. Res. 38(6), 805–825 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Eagleman, A.N.: Acceptance, motivations, and usage of social media as a marketing communications tool amongst employees of sport national governing bodies. Sport Manage. Rev. 16(4), 488–497 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Parmentier, M., Fischer, E.: How athletes build their brands. Int. J. Sport Manage. Market. 11(1/2), 106–124 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Marshall, P.D.: The promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as a marker of presentational media. Celebrity Stud. 1(1), 35–48 (2010)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  10. Bullingham, L., Vasconcelos, A.C.: ‘The presentation of self in the online world’: Goffman and the study of online identities. J. Inf. Sci. 39(1), 101–112 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Pegoraro, A., Jinnah, N.: Tweet ‘em and reap ‘em: The impact of professional athletes’ use of Twitter on current and potential sponsorship opportunities. J. Brand Strategy. 1(1), 85–97 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Hambrick, M. E., Kang, S. J.: Pin it: exploring how professional sports organizations use Pinterest as a communications and relationship-marketing tool. Commun. Sport., (2014). https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479513518044

  13. Casaló, L., Flavián, C., Ibáñez-Sánchez, S.: Antecedents of consumer intention to follow and recommend an Instagram account. Online Inf. Rev. 41(7), 1046–1063 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Lee, M., An, H.:m “A study of antecedents influencing eWOM for online lecture, website: personal interactivity as moderator”. Online Inf. Rev., (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Liu, W., Wu, X., Yang, W., Zhu, X., Zhong, S.: Modeling cyber rumor spreading over mobile social networks: a compartment approach. Appl. Math. Comput. 343, 214–229 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Bodaghi, A., Goliaei, S.: A novel model for rumor spreading on social networks with considering the infuence of dissenting opinions. Adv. Complex Syst. 21(6), 1850011 (2018)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  17. Bodaghi, A., Goliaei, S., Salehi, M.: The number of followings as an influential factor in rumor spreading. Appl. Math. Comput. 357, 167–184 (2019)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  18. Bodaghi, A., Oliveira, J.: The characteristics of rumor spreaders on Twitter: a quantitative analysis on real data. Comput. Commun. 160, 674–687 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comcom.2020.07.017

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Souza, F., Casas, D., Flores, V., et al.: “Dawn of the selfie era: the whos, wheres, and hows of selfies on Instagram”. In: Proceedings of ACM on Conference on Online Social Networks, Palo Alto, CA, pp. 221–231. FF (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Pittman, M., Reich, B.: Social media and loneliness: why an Instagram picture may be worth more than a thousand Twitter words. Comput. Human Behav. 62, 155–167 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Hochman, N., Schwartz, R.: “Visualizing ınstagram: tracing cultural visual rhythms.” AAAI Technical Report WS-12–03 Social Media Visualization (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Silva, T., Melo, P., Almeida, J., Salles, J., Loureiro, A.: “A picture of Instagram is worth more than a thousand words: workload characterization and application”. In: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems, pp. 123–132 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Burch, L.M., Clavio, G., Geurin-Eagleman, A.N., Major, L.H., Pedersen, P., Frederick, E.L., et al.: Battle of the sexes: gender analysis of professional athlete tweets. Global Sport Bus. J. 2(2), 1–21 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Geurin-Eagleman, A.N., Clavio, G.: Utilizing social media as a marketing communication tool: an examination of mainstream and niche sport athletes’ Facebook pages. Int. J. Sport Manage., 16(2) (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Geurin, A., Burch, L.: Communicating via photographs: a gendered analysis of Olympic athletes’ visual self-presentation on Instagram. Sport Manage. Rev. 19(2), 133–145 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Zillich, A.F., Riesmeyer, C.: Be yourself: the relative ımportance of personal and social norms for adolescents’ self-presentation on ınstagram. Soc. Med. + Soc., 7(3) (2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211033810

  27. Stsiampkouskaya, K., Joinson, A., Piwek, L., Stevens, L.: Imagined audiences, emotions, and feedback expectations in social media photo sharing. Soc. Med. + Soc., 7(3) (2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211035692

  28. Riffe, D., Lacy, S., Fico, F.G.: Analyzing media messages: using quantitative content analysis in research, 2nd edn. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Mahwah, NJ (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Smith, L.R., Sanderson, J.: I’m going to instagram It! an analysis of athlete self-presentation on instagram. J. Broadcast. Electron. Med. 59(2), 342–358 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Gazzaniga, M.S., Ivry, R. B., Magnun, G.R., Hustler, J.: Evolutionary perspectives. In: Gazzaniga, M.S., Ivry, R. B., Magnun, G. R. (eds.) Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind. W. W. Norton and Company, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Berk, L.E.: Self and social understanding. In: Berk, L. E. (eds.), Child Development. Pearson Education, Boston (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  32. Dovidio, J.F., Brown, C.E., Heltman, K., Ellyson, S.L., Keating, C.F.: Power displays between women and men in discussions of gender-linked tasks: a multichannel study. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 55(4), 580–587 (1988)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Fink, J.S., Kensicki, L.J.: An imperceptible difference: Visual and textual constructions of femininity in sports ıllustrated and sports ıllustrated for women. Mass Commun. Soc. 5(3), 317–339 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Hardin, M., Lynn, S., Walsdorf, K.: Challenge and conformity on contested terrain: Images of women in four women’s sport/fitness magazines. Sex Roles 53(1/2), 105–117 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Buffardi, L.E., Campbell, W.K.: Narcissism and social networking web sites. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 34, 1303–1314 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Kapidzic, S.: Narcissism as a predictor of motivations behind Facebook profile picture selection. Cyber Psychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 16, 14–19 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Sheldon, P.: In Self-monitoring and narcissism as predictors of sharing Facebook. J. Soc. Media Soc. 5(3), 70–91 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Cook, J.M.: Gender, party, and presentation of family in the social media profiles of 10 state legislatures. Soc. Med. + Soc., (2016). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116646394

  39. Rouse, L., Salter, A.: Cosplay on demand? ınstagram, onlyfans, and the gendered fantrepreneur. Soc. Med.+ Soc., 7(3) (2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211042397

  40. Roberts, B.W., Edmonds, G., Grijalva, E.: It is developmental me, not generation me: developmental changes are more important than generational changes in narcissism—commentary on Trzesniewski and Donnellan (2010). Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 5, 97–102 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Foster, J.D., Misra, T.A., Reidy, D.E.: Narcissists are approach-oriented toward their money and their friends. J. Res. Pers. 43, 764–769 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Litchfield, C., Kavanagh, E.: Twitter, team GB and the Australian olympic team: representations of gender in social media spaces. Sport Soc., (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Krane, V., Ross, S., Miller, M., Ganoe, K., Lucas-Carr, C., Barak, K.S.: It’s cheesy when they smile: what girl athlete prefer in images of female college athletes. Res. Q. Exerc. Sport 82(4), 755–768 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Tifferet, S., Vilnai-Yavetz, I.: Gender differences in facebook self_presentation: an international randomized study. Comput. Human Behav. 35, 388–399 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Bodaghi, A., Oliveira, J.: The theater of fake news spreading, who plays which role? a study on real graphs of spreading on Twitter. Expert Syst. Appl., (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2021.116110

  46. Pandian, A.P.: Performance evaluation and comparison using deep learning techniques in sentiment analysis. J. Soft Comput. Paradigm. 3(2), 123–134 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Tripathi, M.: Sentiment analysis of Nepali COVID19 tweets using NB, SVM AND LSTM. J. Artific. Intell. Capsule Netw. 3(3), 151–168 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Manoharan, J.S.: Capsule network algorithm for performance optimization of text classification. J. Soft Comput. Paradigm 3(1), 1–9 (2021)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  49. Manoharan, J.S.: Study on hermitian graph wavelets in feature detection. J. Soft Comput. Paradigm. 1(1), 24–32 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Bodaghi, A., Oliveira, J.: A longitudinal analysis on Instagram characteristics of Olympic champions. Soc. Netw. Anal. Mining. 12(1), 3 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-021-00838-9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Bodaghi, A., Oliveira, J., Zhu, J.J.H.: The fake news graph analyzer: an open-source software for characterizing spreaders in large diffusion graphs. Softw. Impacts. 10, 100182 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.simpa.2021.100182

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

The study was partially funded by City University of Hong Kong Centre for Communication Research (No. 9360120) and Hong Kong Institute of Data Science (No. 9360163).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amirhosein Bodaghi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Bodaghi, A., Zhu, J.J.H. (2022). The Olympic Gold Medalists on Instagram: A Data Mining Approach to Study User Characteristics. In: Pandian, A.P., Fernando, X., Haoxiang, W. (eds) Computer Networks, Big Data and IoT. Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies, vol 117. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0898-9_58

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0898-9_58

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-19-0897-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-19-0898-9

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics