Sports Communication 2018 Abstracts
Comparing age and nationality: NBC’s online portrayal of female Olympic figure skaters • Elise Anguizola Assaf • This paper explores 20 published profiles of 2014 and 2018 female Olympic figure skaters. Research was conducted on the biographies published on the NBC Olympic website, analyzing the framing of common themes, nationality, and age. Common themes of sacrifice and overcoming obstacles were found, as well as the importance of age and a focus on youth. Nationality was also deemed a factor with more or less detail, as well as skating-relevance of detail, provided based on the country the athlete was competing for. Coverage of female Olympic figure skaters should continue to be analyzed for specific frames used to understand how the athletes are discussed, and if the found frames are used by profile authors across additional Games.
Social Media for the Win: How Brands Integrated Social into their Advertising Strategy During Super Bowl LI • Clay Craig, Texas State University; Shannon Bichard, Texas Tech University; Mary Liz Brooks • There were 190.8 million social media interactions across Facebook and Twitter during Super Bowl 2017 (Nielsen, 2017). Advertisers during the game benefit from increased engagement on social media platforms as a way to maximize their investment. Social media use by brands provides rich content that encourages interactivity. This study examined integrated branding efforts during Super Bowl 2017 and results indicate a strong presence, with many brands attempting to leverage social media to strengthen promotional efforts.
Five Rings, Five Screens?: A Global Examination of Social TV Influence on Social Presence and National Identity During the 2018 Winter Olympic Games • Natalie Brown-Devlin, University of Texas at Austin; Michael B. Devlin, Texas State University; Andrew Billings, University of Alabama; Kenon Brown, The University of Alabama • In the week following the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, 2,296 people from six different nations (Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and the United States) were surveyed to better understand social TV engagement during mega-sporting events. Using social presence theory as a theoretical framework, core insights are found regarding social TV engagement, device usage, and the potential for social TV engagement to predict different social outcomes and feelings of national pride/identification.
Why do you follow? A closer look at sport fan engagement with athletes on Twitter • David Cassilo; Zachary Humphries, Kent State University • Social media sites like Twitter have provided athletes the ability to communicate directly with their fans. Previous studies have analyzed the content of athlete tweets and how athletes use Twitter to connect with their followers. This research attempted to examine whether athlete’s tweets were aligning with the uses and motivations fans have for following athletes on Twitter. The data of an online survey that was distributed to 112 respondents revealed that fans follow athletes on Twitter mostly for information sharing purposes and least for interactive purposes. Furthermore, while male and female followers were generally similar on why they followed athletes on Twitter, women were significantly more likely to do so for diversion motives. The results of the study indicate that athletes would most effectively align their Twitter use to their followers by using it to distribute new information about themselves, their team, and their sport rather than using it to foster interactivity by fans.
“Elevator Eyes” in Sports Broadcasting: Differences in Attention Allocation to Male and Female Sports Reporters • Glenn Cummins, Texas Tech University; Monica Ortiz; Andrea Rankine • Despite documented differences in how male versus female sports journalists are perceived, scholars have not explored differences in how they are actually watched. This experiment employs eye tracking to measure how much attention viewers allocated to male and female reporters’ bodies versus their faces. Results revealed a greater ratio of time on female reporters’ bodies to their faces relative to male reporters. However, this effect was less robust among viewers with strong interest in sports.
Identification and Crisis: An Exploration into the Influence of Sports Identification on Perceptions of Sports Crises • Jennifer Harker, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill • Sports identification was examined in this research as a relational history with sports entities to test its predictive influence of stakeholders’ perceptions regarding sports-related crises. Sports identification was explored as a social identification with sports (fandom) and as an individual identification with a specific National Football League team (fanship). Findings indicate that sports identification is indeed a predictive element of stakeholders’ perceptions regarding sports crises; however, findings track in an interesting opposite direction than theory suggests.
Colin Kaepernick, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Diversion in Sports Crisis • Virginia Harrison; Sara Erlichman, Penn State • The 2018 Super Bowl presented an opportunity for the National Football League (NFL) to address its season-long controversy surrounding its players’ national anthem protests–yet the league ignored it. This study seeks to understand the effects of the NFL’s crisis management strategy of diversion on organizational reputation. Fans’ support for the NFL’s response and corporate social responsibility (CSR) messaging positively impacted reputation, while fans’ support for players and their cause negatively impacted reputation. Implications are discussed.
The evolution of eSports in the eyes of mainstream media and public relations, 2000-2017. • Jue Hou, University of Alabama; Xiaoxu Yang, University of Alabama • This study examines the media and public relations coverage of eSports over a 17-year period, focusing on how the representations of eSports as a rising industry have changed in China during that time. From the perspective of media framing, the current study investigated both the tone of coverage and the topic emphasis of eSports related stories through quantitative content analysis. In general, findings indicated that both mainstream media and public relations gradually covered eSports issues in a more positive way. Similar to traditional sports reporting, the topic emphasis also shifted from real-life status to player and team performance in the contemporary climate. Implications for both the current trend of eSports industry and suggestions for future related study directions were discussed.
Examining the Growth of Sport Communication Programs in Higher Education through a Survey of Program Coordinators • Minhee Choi, University of South Carolina; Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina; Ted Kian, Oklahoma State University • As higher education institutions seek ways to attract, recruit, and retain students, some schools and colleges are creating sports communication programs. This study surveyed coordinators of those programs regarding their opinions of this quickly growing field. Results demonstrate that student interest, administrative and financial support, and having components already in place before designing curricula are keys to success. Results of this study can be used by schools looking to launch sport communication program.
Sports Media versus News Media: Perceptions of Media Bias in Coverage of the NFL National Anthem Protests in 2017 • Ken Kim, Xavier; Randall Patnode • This experimental study examines how the hostile media phenomenon arises in the context of general sports media relative to professional mainstream news media. Audience perceptions of bias can also be triggered by how particular messages are framed, so a second goal of this study is to clarify how news framing relates to the hostile media phenomenon. Participants (N = 124) read a news story, varying in news source (The Sporting News vs. Fox News vs. MSNBC) and news framing (outcome vs. value), on the NFL national anthem controversy. Results revealed that partisan individuals viewed a news story from the general sports media as neutral or more favorable toward their own position than the mainstream news media. Also, an outcome-framed news story evoked less hostile media perception than a value-framed news story.
Interplay of Second Screening for Sports, Attachment to School, and Smartphone Use in Campus Life • Bumsoo Kim, The University of Alabama • Focusing on college students’ digital media use behaviors, this study verified (1) the logic of social identity by showing that college students’ using a second screen to share or search for content about the home team is positively related to attachment to one’s school and (2) the communication mediation model by presenting the positive mechanism between second screening, attachment, and different types of use of smartphone.
Female Hockey Players’ Strategic Use of Social Media: From the Perspective of Self-Presentation Theory • Halli Krzyzaniak, University of North Dakota; Soojung Kim, University of North Dakota • This study attempted to understand elite female hockey players’ current social media use and identify effective social media content and practices. Utilizing a mixed-method approach, the content analysis of Instagram and Twitter posts of this study showed that hockey-related social media content was more effective in generating likes and comments. Interestingly, however, online in-depth interviews demonstrated that athletes use social media more to consume daily news and for personal enjoyment than they do for self-promotion.
Public Perceptions of Transgressive Female Athletes: Roles of Racial Identity and Visual Framing • Lance Kinney, University of Alabama; Amanda Flamerich, University of Alabama • A 2 (white female/Black female) x 2 (threatening appearance/non-threatening appearance) experiment investigated perceptions of same-race and cross-race female athletes involved in transgressions while simultaneously accounting for the subject’s level of racial identity. Media-generated stereotypes involving African-Americans, crime and athletes are reviewed. As suggested by social identity theory, strong in-group biases were observed. Subjects reporting high levels of racial identity recommended longer punishments and reported lower image ratings for athletes of the opposite race. Visual framing theory is used to investigate the impact of threatening and non-threatening photos. However, visual appearance did not affect punishment or image ratings. A significant interaction is observed for athlete image ratings based upon racial identity levels and the athlete’s appearance.
Uniting for a collaborative protest: How NFL in-house media covered athlete activism, a case study • Michael Mirer, Fairmont State • As sports become a site for social protest, league- and team-controlled media will shape how that activism is perceived. Using content and textual analysis this paper finds that writers for NFL team sites stressed the idea of unity and collaboration in coverage of player activism following comments by Donald Trump. This coverage suggests that in-house media may defend activist athletes but also recast their demands. The professional implications for in-house reporters are discussed.
Examining Public Perceptions of CSR in Sport: The Role of Attributions, Fit, and Information Source • Joon Kyoung Kim, University of South Carolina; Holly Overton, University of South Carolina; Kevin Hull, University of South Carolina; Minhee Choi, University of South Carolina • Despite the proliferation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in professional sports leagues, research has not widely examined public expectations and perceptions of CSR in sport. This study employed a between-subjects online experiment to investigate how sports spectators infer motives of a professional sports team’s CSR efforts and how attributions and perceptions of fit between CSR activities and the team impact patronage intentions. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
Compliments vs. Criticisms: What Network Television Announcers Say About Major League Baseball Players During Nationally Televised Games • James Rada, Ithaca College; K. Tim Wulfemeyer, San Diego State University • This research sought to determine whether TV network announcers for Major League Baseball games offered more positive or negative comments during their coverage of nationally televised games and whether they were acting more as “cheerleaders” for or as “haters” of the players participating in the games. Results showed that the announcers were overwhelmingly positive in their comments about players with few significant differences related to the position played, type of comment, or whether a player was on the home team or the visiting team. Significant differences were found related to comments about players of different races with Latino players receiving more than their fair share of negative comments.
Pardon My Critique: Using comedy to critique — and reinforce — masculine norms in sports in popular sports media • Colin Storm • Using Connell’s concept of masculinity (1995) and gender scripts (i.e., Mahalik, Good, & Englar-Carlson, 2003) as a framework, this paper examines how one of the most popular sports podcasts, Pardon My Take, articulates and satires masculinity in sports. Specifically, the author argues that through weekly segments, the co-hosts both make fun of—and uphold—traditional masculine values and standards in sports.
Animating women’s sports: Social media, gender, and evolving techniques for constructing the legitimate and authentic athlete • Erin Whiteside, University of Tennessee; Jason Stamm, The University of Tennessee – Knoxville • Women have historically been on the losing end when sports media professionals engage with new technology. Drawing from a content analysis of Southeastern Conference athletic department Twitter feeds, this study suggests that women, despite being constructed as credible and legitimate athletes using traditional measures of analysis, may be at risk once again of being left behind when it comes to the deployment of engaging and innovative social media techniques.
Controversy, Collisions, and Cries: Contrasting Chinese and U.S. Short Track Speed Skating Television Coverage in the 2018 Winter Olympics • Qingru Xu; Ryan Broussard, University of Alabama; Sitong Guo, University of Alabama; J.C. Abdallah, University of Alabama • This study content analyzes more than 17 hours of the Olympic short track speed skating coverage at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics from both China and the United States, exploring the potential differences in broadcasting frames regarding nationalism and biological sex. In contrast to the intense nationalistic notions uncovered in CCTV, NBC only devoted 5% of the media attention to domestic athletes, indicating that the network does not always favor home athletes in covering the Olympics. Instead of adopting a nation-oriented narrative as CCTV announcers did, NBC broadcasters framed the short track contests in a spectator perspective. Implications for the findings are offered.
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