Female irruption and digital narratives alternative in alternative sports journalism: the case of ecuavóley

Abstract

In the Ecuadorian context, ecuavóley is a popular sports practice with a strong territorial presence, but historically excluded from traditional media. Its female version, in particular, has been doubly invisible: because of its condition as a non-institutionalized sport and because it is reproduced in a masculinized media field. This article takes as its object of study a sample of 40 videos selected from more than 1,539 audiovisual content available on YouTube about ecuavóley, all with female participation, published between 2022 and 2024 on three specialized channels. The objective is to analyze how specialized digital narratives configure alternative forms of media representation of sport, with emphasis on the visibility of women. Based on a qualitative methodology, which combines content analysis and critical discourse analysis, and with technical support from artificial intelligence tools for the organization of the corpus, six categories were defined:  visibility of female athletes, narrative language, visual resources, audience interaction, contextualization of the event and audiovisual production. The results show a tension between the growing presence of women in these spaces and the persistence of gender stereotypes in discourses. However, emerging practices of alternative sports journalism are also identified, characterized by self-management, community narrative and the resignification of popular sport from the digital margins.