It is difficult to survey the sport communication landscape without seeing Twitter’s influence in some way. In the context of sports, Twitter has opened up communication avenues for athletes, coaches, personnel in sport organizations, and members of the sport media. Consequently, it has created unique interaction opportunities between fans and athletes, while simultaneously creating trepidation and uncertainty among those responsible for managing sports organizations. Twitter’s emergence in sports has been both pervasive and rapid, and it is therefore crucial that sport communication researchers become major players in exploring and understanding Twitter. This special issue of IJSC offers compelling evidence that Twitter does indeed matter.

Editorial
Introduction to This Special Issue of IJSC on Twitter
Jimmy Sanderson

Student Research
#WorldSeries: An Empirical Examination of a Twitter Hashtag During a Major Sporting Event
Matthew Blaszka, Lauren M. Burch, Evan L. Frederick, Galen Clavio, and Patrick Walsh

Industry interviews
Interview with Kathleen Hessert, Founder and President of Buzz Mgr and SportsMediaChallenge
Betsy Emmons

Interview With Pat Donahue, Coordinator of Digital Media, Los Angeles Kings
Matthew H. Zimmerman

Original Research
How Tweet It Is: A Gendered Analysis of Professional Tennis Players’ Self-Presentation on Twitter
Katie Lebel and Karen Danylchuk

Why We Follow: An Examination of Parasocial Interaction and Fan Motivations for Following Athlete Archetypes on Twitter
Evan L. Frederick, Choong Hoon Lim, Galen Clavio, and Patrick Walsh

The Positives and Negatives of Twitter: Exploring How Student-Athletes Use Twitter and Respond to Critical Tweets
Blair Browning, Jimmy Sanderson

Networked Fandom: Applying Systems Theory to Sport Twitter Analysis
Galen Clavio, Lauren M. Burch, and Evan L. Frederick

Case Study
Identity in Twitter’s Hashtag Culture: A Sport-Media-Consumption Case Study
Lauren Reichart Smith, Kenny D. Smith