To explore how national governing bodies engage sports fans through the medium of twitter during a major global sporting event: A case study of southern hemisphere teams during the 2015 Rugby World Cup
Author
Littlefield, Harry
Date
2016-03-10Type
Dissertation
Publisher
Cardiff Metropolitan University
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In this study the author investigates the official twitter feeds of three southern hemisphere international rugby union teams and the NGBs that control them for pre during and post tournament dynamic. The study focused on two main objectives: Are NGBs of international rugby teams using twitter to engage fans pre, during and post a major sporting event? and, Is there any relationship between a fan behaviour model and the official twitter feeds of international rugby union NGBs when the team they represent is faced with a positive progression or negative exit in the tournament?. These two objectives were explored by two phases of research. The first phase of research was a quantitative content analysis of total volume and frequency of tweets (2021 tweets). This found that the NGBs were using twitter to engage fans using live commentary and that most of the tweets were produced during the tournament. The second phase of research was a detailed content analysis in which themes were generated from a fan behaviour model (Campbell, Aiken and Kent, 2004) to see if the NGBs shared the same behaviours as the fans in terms of the content posted on twitter in the timeframe of post negative exit or positive progression from the tournament. These main themes were vicarious success, group performance, camaraderie, loyalty, individualism and disassociation. It found that the relationship between fan and sporting organisation is critical they look to build a certain virtual relationship with every fan through twitter. The author suggested that this area of NGBs within the discipline of rugby union could be further examined with a possible comparison between Northern and Southern hemisphere rugby union teams.
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, subject and abstract.
-
Twitter Strategies for Web-Based Surveying: Descriptive Analysis From the International Concussion Study
Hendriks, S.; Duking, P.; Mellalieu, Stephen D. (JMIR Publications, 2016-09-01)BACKGROUND: Social media provides researchers with an efficient means to reach and engage with a large and diverse audience. Twitter allows for the virtual social interaction among a network of users that enables researchers ... -
Exploring the effectiveness of twitter as a method of increasing feamle participation in sport: a UK home nation NGB case study
Phillips, Charlotte (Cardiff Metropolitan University, 2016-05-15)It has been well documented that female participation in sport is a key area for concern within the field of sport development (Cooky, Begovic, Sabo, Oglesby & Snyder, 2014). More recently in the sector of sport marketing, ... -
A Multiple Case Study of Ten Primary Schools’ Use of Twitter
Langford, Emma (2013)This paper explores the use of the social networking site Twitter, by ten primary schools in England and Wales. More specifically, this multiple case study takes a quantitative approach in assessing how schools are ...