Victoria Rangel Mora

Research Proposal

ENC 1102

2 February 2024

Introduction:

With the advancement of technology and sports our sports environment has changed.

Firstly, women are now making themselves a space in the previous male-dominated space.

Secondly, the rise social media has given us the ability to spread information quickly. This means

that sports news about both men and women is much larger and easily assessable by the public.

With that information in mind, the question that I want to answer is “How ESPN’s Instagram on

men’s and women’s basketball shows the disparity between genders in sports?”

Methodology:

My primary methodology for gathering primary data will be via genre analysis. This

genre analysis will occur within the ESPN Instagram account. More specifically posts involving

both male and female basketball players. When looking at the posts I will be analyzing the

content, likes, and comments. Analyzing the linguistic elements will be important for my primary

research since the language of the comments section can share a lot about public opinions.

For secondary data, I will be using information from peer-reviewed articles. These

articles will mainly be found through UCF’s Primo Search. I will be using the data and

conclusions that they have gathered and use it to help support the research I am doing. These

peer-reviewed articles will focus on topics of social media and the similarities and differences of

men’s and women’s social media posts.

Research Timeline:
Week 5: Fix up any issues in research proposal/question. Begin to find and look at secondary

sources.

Week 6: Look at social media posting on ESPN account and find a good sample size to analyze.

Week 7: Determine structure of paper and start to write out rough draft.

Week 8: Finish up rough draft, review it and turn into final draft.