Digital media has played a central role in promoting women`s sport, where female athletes are increasingly using online platforms to control their own representations and challenge male dominated sporting institutions. Alternatively, some commentators claim that female athletes` use of digital media contributes to patriarchal practices in sport, where through self-promotion and image building they do little to advance representations of women`s sport. This paper interrogates these ideas, adopting a postfeminist sensibility and collaborative research approach to examine the online self-representations of a female athlete and blogger. The athlete in question is Meghan MacLaren, a professional golfer on the Ladies` European Tour who documents her life as a professional athlete through her online blog. Primarily, the authors present a critical analysis of MacLaren`s blog posts over a period of three years, from MacLaren turning professional to the present day. This initial analysis prompted a series of questions around MacLaren`s blogging and self-representations, which the authors then posed directly to her, and Meghan was invited to respond in her own voice. Using a collaborative approach with MacLaren as co-author, this paper seeks to draw attention to the diverging realities of a female professional athlete fulfilling dichotomous identities as a simultaneously trusting and doubting golf performer on the course and a self-appointed athlete activist online, all the while operating in, and influenced by the patriarchal and capitalist cultural environment of golf.
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