Launch of FSL Media

This October sees the launch of FSL Media, a new wing of the Feminist Sport Lab. FSL will now be on a number of different platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

‘A media presence has always been in our plans,’ explained FSL co-director Dr Sheree Bekker. ‘We want to put our ideas out there, as well as highlight the work that we do, but we have always wanted to do it in a way where we keep control of the messaging.’

It is not always easy to preserve the nuance when giving interviews to outside media companies, who often look to simplify complex questions. ‘FSL Media will now be the direct voice of the Feminist Sport Lab’, adds Dr Bekker.

‘This is an exciting new phase of FSL,’ co-director Stephen Mumford points out. ‘We were unhappy with the direction taken by Twitter since it became X, but also didn’t feel that we could leave it completely until we had established our presence on other platforms. Through the Summer of 2024, we put in place what we needed, starting accounts on Insta, TikTok and, perhaps most exciting of all, YouTube.’

The YouTube channel, FSL TV, will be aiming to post regular content, rotating between four programmes. The FSL Vodcast will be a coffee and chat style programme, discussing topics and issues of the day in women’s sport. FSL Dialogues will be a series of interviews with FSL members, and other guests, profiling their work. FSL Open will have flexible content but will be more of a deep dive into academic questions around sport and gender. The FSL Book Club will be a monthly discussion of a text, some old classics and some new.

‘We are so excited about the Book Club,’ says Sheree. ‘We have recorded the first episode – a discussion of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman – and we really enjoyed doing it. It’s 50 minutes of discussion recorded in one take at the first attempt. We loved that book and were astonished how relevant it was to women’s sport: to feminist sport.’

‘It might take us a while to attract subscribers to FSL TV,’ Stephen conceded, ‘but that’s fine. It’s fun to be building from the ground up. Recording has been fascinating and we are proud of the Wollstonecraft show. We hope to let viewers know future books in advance, in case they would like to read along with us and join in the discussion in the comments.’

FSL has been able to launch its new media wing with the help of its enthusiastic new staff. ‘We hope we strike the right balance between accessible and academic,’ Sheree concludes.

You will be able to find FSL on:

LinkTree: @FemSportLab

Instagram: @FemSportLab

TikTok: @femsportlab

Youtube: @FemSportLab

Twitter/X: @FemSportLab