ABSTRACT
Even though nowadays it seems that there is no limitation for women to participate in football, it is still a sport dominated by male players and even male football fans. However, there has been a significant development in the number of female football fans in the last decade. These days, social media has been utilised as a virtual communication medium bringing out a homophily tendency. Groupings of football fan communities are based on similarities in accessing information related to their favourite football club. This study examines two female football fan communities: @JCI_Juvedonna (Twitter) and @babesunitedindo (Instagram). By utilising textual analysis and netnography methods (interviews and observations), the aim is to explore how female football fans construct contesting gender identities in social media. Research findings reveal that there are strategies used in the communities’ social media, such as the construction of an imagined community that unites the members with a sense of belonging to the micro-community and the negotiation done to make sense of the dominant existence of the male fan community by using multiple signifying practices in articulating their feminine identity.
