Sports Chatter in the Digital Age: The Marca Community in Spain by Hibai López-González Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona
Jan 13, 2015
Sports Chatter in the Digital Age: The Marca Community in Spain
by Hibai López-GonzálezPompeu Fabra University, Barcelona
What seems to be the problem?
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Online-related problems
Sports-related problems
Online sports communities
Disengagement, liquid networks (Bauman, 2000)
Derogatory language (Ruiz et al, 2011)
Chatter, insubstantial conversation (Eco, 1986)
Hostile comments, partisanship, sectarianism (Boyle, 2012)
In the 1980s in the UK, hooligans prevailed over any other fan in football terraces.
The Heysel (1985) and Hillsborough (1989) disasters precipitated a turn in regulations.
The Taylor Report (1990) prompted the beginning of a new spectacle:
— Commodified— Global— Family-friendly— Media appealing
Simultaneously, similar regulations were implemented in many countries. Consequently, hooligans were gradually forced to abandon the stadium…
…and go where?
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
What seems to be the problem?Sports-related
problems
The community evolves into a network of connections and disconnections (Bauman, 2000)
New characters and new habits emerge with digital platforms:
— Unseen community: Lurkers (Nonnecke & Preece, 2005; Ridings et al, 2006; Li et al, 2008 )
— Flamers, trolls — Flaneurs, tourist fans (Giulianotti, 2002)
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
What seems to be the problem?Online-related
problems
• We selected the Marca Community in Spain as our case study:
— Presumably the biggest online sports community in Spanish. Over 400,000 registered users.
— Marca is the most read newspaper in Spain (3,100,000 daily readers)
• We focused on the comments posted by Marca members (N=15,131) on 8 match reports during two months.
• Marca provided us with all the comments, including those deleted by the platform due to rules of participation infringement.
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Sports-related
problemsSample
Online sports
community
AIM
To examine the Community building (CB) in online sports discussion.
Previous research:
— Knowledge Building (Marra et al, 2004; Zhu, 2006; Sing & Khine, 2006; Lee, 2012; Naranjo et al, 2012; Ng et al, 2012).
— Democracy Building (Xiang et al, 2008; Himelboim et al, 2009; Ruiz et al, 2010; Ruiz et al, 2011; Valenzuela et al, 2012)
METHOD
We adopt the Structural Analysis perspective: User participation & User interaction analysis.
Content Analysis is irrelevant: phatic communities.
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Sports-related
problemsAim and method
Online sports
community
Some general facts:
• The 8 news articles had 324,492 readers. Only 1.53 percent of them also posted a comment • 24.07 percent spammers• 2.31 comments per user
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Sports-related
problemsResults
Online sports
community
How do users behave?
(Activity and comment deletion correlation r=.847, p<0.002)
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Sports-related
problemsResults
Online sports
community
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Rest (>10)0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
350063.82
16.51
7.273.36 1.91 1.57 1.17 0.62 0.62 0.52 3.14
Distribution of users sorted by number of posted comments
# of overall comments posted per user(and above, % users in each group represent of overall users)
# of
use
rs
How do users behave?
The Long Tail of participation
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Sports-related
problemsResults
Online sports
community
1 2 3 4 5 6 12 24 480
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
30.99
46.97
56.47
72.41
82.99
98.04 100
Comment posting over 48 hours period
Time elapsed since article publication (in hours)
cum
mul
ativ
e %
of o
vera
ll c
omm
ents
How do users interact?
28.51 percent of the user were interactive. 4.43 comments per interactive user:
— Incoming and outgoing interactivity were correlated (r=.748, p<0.000)— (A) The probability of a core user responding to a non-core user (P(A)=.459)— (B) The probability of a non-core user responding to a core user P(B)= .407)
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Sports-related
problemsResults
Online sports
community
1) Huge invisible community. We only see the tip of the iceberg.
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Sports-related
problemsConclusions
Online sports
community
2) Not as liquid as we might expect
If we compare Marca users to users in other new sites, we find that in Marca there are less members who only posted once (Pastor, 2010).
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Sports-related
problemsConclusions
Online sports
community
93% 95%
72% 88%
63%
3) A horizontal community:
— It is not hierarchically distributed
— No opinion leaders (see Twitter)
— Online facilitators (Himelboim et al, 2009) that allow new users to join the network
Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Sports-related
problemsConclusions
Online sports
community
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Sports chatter in the digital age:
The Marca Community in Spain
Sports-related
problemsReferences