Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Sport Media'

This thesis investigates how sport is employed in the new media age as mediated sport goes through the liminal phase of new media. Set against the contextual background of recurrent ‘moral panics’ that accompanied each new wave of media innovation, this study aimed to chart young people’s involvement in sport via the use of new media technology. The thesis concentrated on three research issues: access to, uses of, and the displacement effect of new media. Four major forms of new media were included in the study – digital television, the Internet, mobile telephony and video games. The study used a mixed method design of qualitative and quantitative research methods. The data collection was conducted in two phases: survey methods were first used to examine the audience experience of new media sports, and follow-up interviews of young people were then conducted to investigate motives for media choice and the perceived gratifications of new media sport. ‘Uses and Gratifications’ theory was utilised as the theoretical basis for examining user motives. Eight hundred valid responses were obtained from the questionnaire-based survey [a response rate of 94%] and follow-up interviews were conducted with 12 young people [selected purposively among volunteers from the pool of questionnaire respondents]. A key conclusion drawn from this thesis is that the Internet did not displace televised sport. The findings also suggest that the use of new media sport can have positive effects on sport and physical activities participation. Conversely, there was no support for the popular perception that media users participate in sport and physical activities less; many of them were in fact active in the pursuit of sport and physical activities.

The turn of the millennium has heralded an explosion in the popularity of adventure sports often also referred to as alternative lifestyle sports or extreme sports. These are offering both new avenues and potential challenges to the traditional ways of conceptualising and practicing sport. This thesis analyses the development of adventure sports, in particular climbing and kayaking, as a subculture. It delivers a socio-economic history of climbing, analyses the role of the media in its development, its participation and its lived experience. Further it investigates the impact of globalisation, commercialisation and consumerism on adventure sports, and considers to what extent they are being brought into the mainstream as a result. The economic impact of participation in adventure sports is reviewed along with a study of how the make up of its participants has changed as the activities have become more accessible. Particular focus is placed on the analysis of the gender order, specifically looking at the experiences of women in adventure sports. For this purpose the sports culture found in climbing and kayaking is examined and the implications for the reconstruction of gender relations are considered. This study employs an ethnographic approach including both semi-structured and structured interviews with both adventure sports experts and participants, document and media analysis, participant observation and the more recent nethnography approach. One of the significant contributions of this thesis has been to provide a comprehensive review and analysis of the social, cultural and media environment of arguably one of the most popular lifestyle sports in the UK. It has also shown the strong interrelationship that exists between the media and adventure sports, and has demonstrated how the increased commercialisation and commodification of the activity has resulted in economic development particularly in some remoter parts of the UK through the packaging and provision of the climbing experience. At the same time some participants see this is ‘selling out’. This research has demonstrated how women’s participation in adventure sports has been subject to marginalisation, sexualisation and trivialisation similar to other mainstream sports. However, this work has also highlighted that there is room for optimism as new discourses of femininity contrary to the traditional male hegemony are emerging. Further research opportunities have been identified concerning issues of ethnicity and participation; the social, cultural and economic relationships between adventure sportspeople and rural communities. Emerging feminist discourses also warrant further investigation.

Introduction  The use of social media has been increasing enormously during the past years. Busi-  nesses have realized the importance of being present in social media, like Facebook,  but purposes for utilizing it vary widely among academics as well as among the prac-  titioners. Also, quantifying and measuring success in social media activities can be  challenging without proper definitions of success factors and relevant metrics to  measure them. Sports organizations are understudied in social media since the previ-  ous research and academic literature have focused only on businesses in general.  Sports industry and sports fans, however, have some special characteristics to be  considered when studying business in social media, such as an intangible, experien-  tial, and subjective nature of sport events and strong personal and emotional identifi-  cation sports fans have towards their favorite team.  Purpose  This study aims to find out the reasons and understand why companies act in social  media, like Facebook; for what purposes they use social media, what do they expect  to gain from it, and how do they evaluate success of their social media activities. The  empirical study focuses on sports teams, in particular, and the case companies are  Finnish professional hockey teams.  Method  This study takes a qualitative approach to fulfill the purpose of the study and to un-  derstand and interpret the phenomenon in hand. A case study with four semi-  structured open interviews was conducted to collect empirical data. The data was re-  flected and analyzed against the frame of reference in order to reach conclusions.  Conclusion  Fan engagement and community building seem to be the most essential reasons for  sports organizations’ presence in social media. These aspects were argued to emerge  in a large extent especially in sports business. Also, communicating and informing  was seen to be important. Advertising and sales promotion were indentified to be  less important. When it comes to quantifying and measuring success there is a lack of  clear definitions and metrics, but also a lack of resources and consistent planning, to  effectively monitor the influence and results of social media activities. Implications  for better practices are identified and discussed in this paper. Additionally, some fu-  ture expectations for social media, like mobile integration, were identified.

The purpose of this dissertation was to address the degree to which social media can be utilized as a tool for stakeholder communication by not-for-profit sport organizations. Delimited to national sport organizations, specifically those in a Canadian context, and using a stakeholder theory approach, the project advanced three major research objectives: (1) determine what not-for-profit sport organizations are communicating to their stakeholders via social media, including identifying forces and pressures that impact content and messaging; (2) identify which stakeholders are positioned and advantaged in the social network of not-for-profit sport organizations; and (3) uncover the contextual factors that have enabled the use of social media channels by not-for-profit sport organizations. In order to accomplish these objectives, the dissertation was structured into three interconnected stages parsed into three research articles – each with its own supporting theoretical framework (i.e., institutional theory, network theory, and the contextualist approach to organizational change) – providing findings discussed using a stakeholder perspective. In the first article, the results found social media communication was predominantly used for promoting, reporting, and informing purposes, attributable to the coercive (e.g., funding partners), mimetic (e.g., salient organization routines), and normative (e.g., best practices) pressures at play. In the second article, fans, elite athletes, photographers, competing sport organizations, and local sport clubs were identified as key stakeholders with significant advantage given their position in the social media network of not-for-profit organizations. The final article revealed social media has yet to radically impact the operations of these organizations, highlighting some of the challenges related to social media communication. Cumulatively, the findings illustrate not-for-profit sport organizations can improve upon their current use of social media as a stakeholder communications tool. Through the implementation of a unique social media strategy composed of multiple philosophies, not-for-profit sport organizations could consider the variance in stakeholder groups while incorporating the immediacy and engagement social media requires. In doing so, organizations may create the conditions to satisfy stakeholder expectations and increase organizational capacity simultaneously. Concurrently, the findings represent a basis for future research using organizational theory frameworks to explain new trends and phenomena in the social media and sport domain.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the use of social media (SM) as a relationship marketing tool (RM) in the context of professional sport in North America. The specific objectives are (i) to explore the use of social media in meeting relationship marketing goals within the context of professional sport, (ii) to explore how professional sport teams’ managers see the opportunities of social media in meeting relationship marketing goals, (iii) to explore how professional sport teams’ managers see the challenges of social media in meeting relationship marketing goals, and (iv) to examine the benefits of social media, if any, in enhancing long-term relationships with their favourite sport team from the perspective of fans of professional sport teams. Guided by a pragmatist philosophical worldview, the project adopted a multi-domain qualitative research approach. The multi-domain approach reflects the three data sources (i.e., the medium-SM platform, organization-professional teams, and consumers-sport fans). Putting an individual emphasis on each of these three data sources, three different but interrelated studies are conducted to accomplish the overall purpose of the dissertation using an article-based format. The first study, guided by the relationship marketing theoretical framework, adopted a netnographic method to investigate professional sport teams’ use of Twitter as an RM tool. Specifically, the study focused on the three core components of RM: communication, interaction, and value. The netnography is based on data gathered from the official Twitter account of 20 professional sport teams from the four major leagues from August 1, 2015 to February 29, 2016. Results outline seven emergent communication types, six interaction practices, and ten values (co)created by the teams or/and fans. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as impetus for future research are identified. The second study aimed at obtaining a first-hand and an in-depth understanding of the role, opportunities, and challenges of SM in meeting RM goals from the perspective of senior managers of professional sport teams. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 managers from the four major leagues professional sport teams in North America. Results outline the platforms adopted, six intended objectives, seven opportunities and seven challenges of SM as an RM medium. A list of theoretical and practical implications, and impetus for future research is provided. The purpose of the third study was to first gain an empirically supported understanding of the role and benefits of SM as an RM tool from the perspective of professional sport fans and, following that, to identify, specify, verify, and refine the emergent benefits. The study employed an adaptation of the focus group method, dubbed the ‘sequential funnel-based focus group’, which is a multiphase, step-wise version of the established method. The sequential funnel-based focus group is conceptualized, developed, described, and used in this work as a research method. The adaptation allowed the identification of benefits of SM as a medium that enhances long-term relationships through a series of funnel-based focus group discussions in three sequential phases. A total of 10 focus groups with 81 participants took part in the study. The work identified seven major benefits (and 15 sub-categories of benefits) that fans see as opportunities presented by SM as a medium to enhance long-term relationship with their team. Theoretical contributions, practical recommendations, and directions for future research are provided. The findings from the three studies are integrated to construct a multi-dimensionally informed and comprehensive understanding of the use of SM in RM in professional sport. In general, data gathered from the perspective of the three domains (i.e., medium/SM platform, organizational/ professional teams, and consumers/sport fans) informed that SM is providing new directions to RM, making it an effective and affordable channel in realizing RM goals in professional sport context. The thesis also produced empirical evidence of the opportunities that SM presents and the challenges that it poses in terms of meeting RM goals in the context of professional sport. Informed by the studies data, the dissertation also extended Grönroos’s (2004) RM process model through the lens of SM in professional sport context. Contributions to scholarship, practical recommendations, directions for future research, and the limitations of the dissertation are provided.

The purpose of this essay was to examine conversations between two Swedish organizations and their customers to explore how online meetings and dialogs can affect organisations image and relationships between customers and organisations. Viasat and C More are both live sport broadcasters with online play services. The study was motivated by three research questions: (1) How high response rates do the company's Twitter accounts have on positive or negative feedback and questions? (2) What strategies do the companies twitter accounts apply to customers who experience problems with with their live broadcasts? (3) What appeal and tonality does the company's twitter accounts have? Previous research offers a descriptive account of interaction and interpersonal communication, communication strategies, relationship building between organizations and their customers on social media and effects of relationship management and relationship building in social media. The theoretical framework consists of theories about relationship building and management, interpersonal communication and crisis communication. A quantitative content analysis was implemented to analyse in what extent the chosen companies respond to their customers during September 16 2017 and November 21 2017. Data collected was 734 tweets, which resulted in 406 twitter conversations. A qualitative analysis was conducted with methodological tools form nethnography and social network analysis. The findings showed that both companies answered the majority of received tweets. Patterns and themes were found in the qualitative study that showed both differences and similarities in C More and Viasat’ way of interacting. Viasat often has the last word, and end conversations more often than C More did. Both companies act accordingly to Benoits theories about image restoration. Findings also suggest that both companies risk their reputations and images by engaging in dialog. Interaction and commitment is also the key to build and nurture customer and organisation relationship in order to gain positive outcomes.

Authors: Lars Johansson & Johan Pettersson

Title: “There is way to much sports in the athletics” – A study of Swedish sports

Football has gone from being a hobby and a popular pastime into a billion-dollar industry, and clubs around Europe are therefore operated more and more like regular companies. Sweden's position in the UEFA rankings is a modest 23 rd place, behind nations such as Austria, Switzerland and Belarus. The economic climate in Sweden is often highlighted as a strong factor. When we started our study we agreed that this could be a major contributing factor to this relatively modest rank, but believed that there were also other factors that played a big role. We therefore carried out a quantitative study to identify the Swedish sports manager’s skills of running their clubs as companies within the creative industry. Our theoretical framework was built on organization and leadership theories in general, and in the creative industries in particular and resulted in a four-leg model of sport management requirements: Apart from organizational structure, managerial skills, communicative skills and sport skills were all deemed necessary. Empirical data were collected to see how well the Swedish sports managers' profile fit into our theoretical model. According to our studies, the organizations and sports managers' held-views that were consistent with our theories. Our study suggests that although the sports managers distributed their time equally between the three areas of skills identified (economical, communicational and production knowledge) their competences were unequally divided between the areas.

Syftet med den här kvalitativa studien har varit att undersöka och jämföra hur svenska medierhar bevakat och skrivit om brottning mellan åren 1977 och 2008. Detta för att ta reda på ommediernas bevakning av sporten kan ha haft betydelse kring det medlemstapp som drabbadesvensk brottning under dessa år.

This dissertation brings an interdisciplinary methodology to bear on the rhetorical analysis of women's sport and health social movements in the twenty-first century. Specifically, I read "sports feminism" as a rhetorical discourse that engages ongoing feminist struggles for women's rights to both their bodies and public space. Drawing on transnational feminist rhetorics, I network sports feminist arguments to international policy documents, like the Brighton and Beijing Declarations, to illustrate how the topoi of sport, health, and fitness function as commonplaces in global gender mainstreaming policy. In applying the metaphor of the network to the communicative infrastructure of global sports feminist advocacy, I also draw on new media rhetorics to analyze the role of the wireless Internet and social networking in the rhetorical practice of networking sports feminist policy and arguments across transnational lines of difference. Yet, in reading the rhetorical practices of the Women's International Sports Movement and Nike's Girl Effect through transnational feminist rhetoric, I illustrate how sports feminism is neither a homogenous discourse nor singular feminist identity, and thus, must be analyzed as a pluralistic political praxis with competing rhetorical objectives and audiences. Thus, the final chapter situates sports feminist rhetoric locally in the context of US-based girl power media culture, analyzing the impact of sports feminist rhetoric on the embodied perceptions of gender and gender relations of adolescent American girls. The project thus demonstrates the importance of understanding sports feminist rhetoric's global sociopolitical and economic roles and its impact on gendered identity and labor in the twenty-first century.

This dissertation builds on Wenner's (Wenner, L.A. (1989). Media, Sports and Society: The Research Agenda. In L. A. Wenner (Ed.), Media, Sports and Society (pp. 13-48). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.) claims about how the culture of sport is changed as it is mediated by examining the mediation of sport through four digital sports games produced by Electronic Arts--Fight Night Round 2, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004, MVP Baseball 2005, and John Madden Football 2005. Following the example of digital game scholars, I employ a multi-level method of textual analysis in engaging the representation and gameplay of these respective titles. The dissertation uses three case studies to tease out the ideological implications of these games as they position their users. The fourth case study examines how the digital sports game audience responds to the ideologies and positioning identified in the textual analysis sections. In responding to the broader optimism of new media theorists, I argue for a consideration of the specific context of the digital sports game as a way into measuring the validity of their positions. In looking at the mediation of the body in Fight Night Round 2, golf and its attendant culture in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004, the ubiquitous quantification of MVP Baseball 2005, and audience responses to John Madden Football 2005, I argue that the potential freedom certain strands of new media theory proclaim is constrained by the ideologies resident in the texts examined here and the ways in which these digital sports games position their users. As such, scrutinizing these specific new media contexts reveals we should ultimately be cautious about the degree to which they offer the kinds of progressive freedoms advocated by celebratory new media scholarship.

Media represent a powerful institution in society reflecting dominant values in society and take part in socialization to gender roles for men and women. The gender discourses in society as well as in mass media are interrelated to a complex system of many parts in people’s every day lives (the family, the school, the peer group, boyfriends etc.). The study’s main focus is on how discourses in society and Sport Media offers different gender positions that young female football players use as tools when they as active subjects make meaning of their identities in a gender discourse of sport. In Sweden football is a well-represented sports in media as well as among a Swedish population of nearly 9 millions. The Swedish Football Association is the largest among the sports federations with more than 3.200 associated clubs consisting of more than 1 million active members where 20 % are females (The Swedish Sports Confederation www.rf.se). In media the most common sports is football and Television Channels with nationwide coverage produce more male sport than gendered mixed or female sport in all. Male and gendered mixed sport top the list of sports occurring on Television, as despite football, consists of ice hockey on second place, athletics on third, motor sports and skiing on fourth and fifth place. Popular female sports, that is sports dominated by women in Swedish sports federations, as gymnastics, equestrian and swimming, we find horse jumping on ninth place and swimming on eleventh but not gymnastics though it’s the second popular sports activity after football for females. Despite this when Germany and Sweden meet in Women’s World Cup Final in USA 2003 broadcasted by Swedish Channel 4, the match was followed by 3,5 million Swedish viewers. In the combined the annual audience rating 2003 on Television viewers in Sweden, this football match came second only beaten by The Swedish Trial Contest for Eurovision Song Contest. Other sports events positions on this annual list are far behind other popular TV-programs in Sweden as Donald Duck and Friends, a popular Disney production always sent on Christmas Eve and Swedish quizzes with popular program leaders (www.rf.se, www.svenskfotboll.se, www.mms.se). It has been said that Female Football reached a break trough 2003 in Sweden as a public popular sports event, and in 2004 spectators visiting But if this hints to better opportunities for more female football in the national media coverage, the male dominance still continues in media representations of sport. Even though female sport reporters and female sports appears in media more often than before, this suggests that Sport Media foremost is an interest only for a male viewer, but many women like sport on Television too. The question is what happens when teenaged girls (and boys) view mediated sport produced for male middle-aged adult audience groups? How does cultural meaning of generation, gender and social differences structure everyday life for a collective group as a female football team in how they construct and position them selves within a gendered discourse?   This brief summary reflects sports and media habits in the Swedish society and shows us the cultural importance of physical activities and media entertainment in our day-to-day lives. How the sport is represented through media reflect in certain ways our own picture of the concept sport, as well as sports is comprehended and valued on a cultural level. From a feminist perspective on the institutionalised power relations between media and culture the central question is how gender discourses negotiate meaning in society for men and women.   The theoretical framework for feminist audience research The main theoretical perspectives used here are Stuart Halls reception model of the process of encoding and decoding media texts as meaningful TV-discourses, where viewers in terms of meaning structures approach the media. This model has developed by feminist media studies as power structures of gender discourses in production, content and reception (van Zoonen 1994:41f, Thornham 2000: 99). I will use this model to analyse female positions as gender discourses in a football team. The second perspective is a hermeneutic inspired approach supported by John B Thompson’s appropriation concept. The reception model suggests that even if media texts are framed in certain ways were a dominant power structure of gender representations are embedded; they are decoded by the audiences’ meaning structures in a social context with specific cultural and historical variations. The main point is that communication practices have to be understood in a wider context of social and cultural determinations, as context is both related to family matters and wider social relations. Instead of ideological power structures Hall emphasize the process of hegemony were three possible positions in the decoding process are offered to the viewers: a dominant /hegemonic, a negotiated and an oppositional position (Hall et al 1972/1992, van Zoonen 1994). By relate dominant structures to social processes in culture we can find different explanations. In one sense the media content offers a dominant/hegemonic female collective gender identity supported by the common western ideal for femininity, but in another sense the female gender identity expressed in this football culture by the female football players shows how the interpretation of media content adjust in a socio-historical context. Young females in a football club can negotiate or reject the offered media messages and construct other possible gender positions in their own socio-historical context.  Appropriation is a concept that directs our attention to contextualise the process of reception as a cultural phenomenon, where macro structures of ideological power in society are interrelated with people’s ordinary lives and sense-making processes in their micro social world. This concept also helps us to direct our attention on combining the contexts of production, content and reception in order to analyse culture as meaning making processes. To appropriate is a cultural process were individuals use their available resources to make sense of media messages and adjust them to their social-historical context. Media products are an important part in how we create communication and shape our identities in modern society. The media stimulate to action and utterance as an active part in the formation of social reality. By following the content of sport in media, individuals actually can use that as information to guide their thoughts and actions in their own social context. The appropriations of symbolic forms in a social context are shared with other important individuals in every day communication (Thompson 1995:11f, 174f). In modern society collective identities are complex and culturally constructed in various ways. Media, as part of popular culture, have a particularly important role in the construction and mediation of different expressions and styles of identities. In one sense mass media serves us with a multiplicity of possible identities, free for any individual to pick up and adjust for individual needs in a social context outside the media content. In another sense we must also relate this to some of the important power structures in the organization of media production and content of Sport Media in order to show how mediated symbolic forms adjust in a cultural context by active meaning making subjects. (These structures are often referred to as the Media-Sport-Complex where the analyses of global power relations are connected to perspectives on political economy and culture. See Miller at al.2001, Roche 2000, Boyle & Haynes 2000). In relation to this study the football-playing girls have opportunities to choose what ever sport they like on a theoretical level, but on a social level they adjust to the cultural context they live in, where football for men and women are considered as two separate spheres, supported by the Sport Media content. The Sport Media’s gender representations divides sports in a female and male sphere according to gendered stereotyped structures in society, where team sports as football or ice hockey are dominated by men, and individual sports as gymnastic or figure skating are dominated by women. These stereotypes are structured within ideological representations of gendered positions for masculinity and femininity that are bound to social-historical context that changes over time. The framed structure in media texts function as ideologies but at the same time hegemony according to Hall rather suggests possibilities for opposition and social change since the production of cultural meaning always is open to contestation from below (Hall 1972/1992: 136ff).  The positions suggested here are considered as gendered ideal types not existing in reality. Rather they show how complex constructions of gender identities are and how the girls in this study reflect and move between discourses and different gender positions. The dominant/hegemonic ideal for femininity concerns appearance and beauty accepted as normal standards for females, and are reproduced in many social spheres of which mass media is one of the main messengers. The negotiated position acknowledges and adjusts the offered dominant feminine ideal to own experiences and social situation. The oppositional position recognizes the dominant feminine ideal but due to other experiences or social situation this position rejects and question the proposed ideal with skepticism (Thornham 2000: 100). But if media discourses reflect dominant values in society there is another standard to consider for the constructions of gender in sports. The commonly hegemonic gender ideals are reflecting dominant gender values that in part passes over to sport, where masculine and feminine ideals for physical body appearance distinguish between gender and between sports. So the polarization between genders in sports suggests at least 2 possible hegemonic positions for us to consider. The dominant/hegemonic female position for football is compared to male football, and both ideals starts from a heterosexual white western middle class ideal on masculinity and femininity. Even if the mediated sport historically is built on masculine hegemony were men compete over the hierarchical positions and space of action, this not only exclude women but also men from the sporting field. The dominant position in the hegemonic power structures then only supports some men, not all men (Boyle & Haynes 2000, Connell 1995). Considering sports like ballet, gymnastic or aerobics dominated by women, the men in these sports are likely in a subordinated hierarchical position within a feminine hegemony. They are as men also certainly subordinated in a masculine hegemony, compared to other male sports. We must also consider the risk of using the concepts of masculinity and femininity as this split up gender in two homogenous spheres, when gender in reality consists of more complex and heterogeneous characteristics both for us as individuals and as on a collective level for different groups of people. In everyday life other demographic factors as social classes, education, professional roles or sexual preferences also can unite people as they share common interests. So as gender is social and cultural constructed I consider masculinity and femininity as qualities possessed by both men and women, but divided into gender-preferred stereotypes by socialization for each sex within a given ideological power structure embedded in different discourses in culture (van Zoonen 1994: 34, Butler 1990: 144ff).   How to study football culture During a 6-month period I had conducted my study with an ethnographic approach in a female football club in a team with seventeen players aged 15 years, in a Community situated in the southern parts of Sweden. My focus is on how teenaged girls make meaning in their day-today lives by using media content in a specific cultural context. I colleted my data by observing, talking and interviewing mainly these girls, but also the team’s coaches and the girls parents while attending on the teams training and matches. The media ethnographic approach combines different methods by using participant observations, conversations and interviews. These methods originally derived from anthropological inquiry, are often termed interpretative procedures, the theoretical tradition known as interactionism represented in the works of Erving Goffman and Herbert Blumer. This perspective suggests that the social world is not objective but involves subjective meanings and experiences that are socially constructed in relations by participants in social contexts. Essentially focus lays on how different people experience, interpret and structure their lives. As a researcher using a media ethnographic method you take active part in the culture and tries to understand and take the cultural group’s perspective on media in order to describe peoples acts, expressions and thoughts (Bell et al. 1995, Gillespie 1995:54f, van Zoonen 1994: 131ff).   The participant observations had the main purpose for me to get into the culture and understand football from the girls’ point of view, and to give the girls a chance to get used to me, and make it possible for them to ask questions about me and my study. All though some media use occurred on occasions, I have not observed them watching TV or in front of a computer, in stead I had asked and interviewed the girls about their media preferences. Like other feminists I treat their responses as texts which should be read “symptomatically” as discourses related to available ideologies and images in the specific culture in order to analyse my informants constructions of female identity (Thornham 2000:108f).   For ethical reasons I was very clear about my role as a researcher, since I believe you must be as honest as possible in a study were people are involved, especially young people, and to win their trust I must treat them with respect. My informants knew what the research was about and were prepared for questions from me. Permission from the club and parents were granted before the study started and the girls as well as the club are presented with other names to secure their anonymity and integrity in the published study.                 Sport active girls environment and media habits These girls live in a provincial capitol of medium size, with 76 700 inhabitants in the municipality with 174 sports associations consisting of some successful sports on national or international levels. Despite football clubs in several series, there are for instance a premiership hockey team, a successful tennis club and an athletics club. In 2004 three clubs in this district had football teams for girls and women but only The Football Club Lyrans FF exclusively concentrate on female football. In this cultural context these teenaged football- players live. Their parents all work in middle or lower middle classes professions and lives in middle class areas. The girls either come to trainings together in pairs on bicycles or are driven by cars by their parents. Most of the parents take active part in the team’s matches as enthusiastic spectators. Even if a girl is hindered to participate in training or matches by some illness they always are present as by watchers, not out of duty but for social reasons. Three of the girls have their fathers as coaches in this team, but some younger teams have female coaches and some of the girls in the team I followed acted as coaches on summer school for girls aged 7-10. Of the seventeen girls in the team only two are immigrants from different parts of the Mediterranean.   The cultural construction of gender identities by female sport active females    All these girls live, as many other teenagers in western societies, in a dense media environment with access to different kind of media genres. In the discourse of dominant sports and gender ideals the football playing girls own experienced self-identity as female football player clashes with the unbalanced content on football in Sport Media, as they meet conflicting demands on femininity within the football culture as well as from surrounding society. The football culture encourages one type of femininity that perhaps is a little tuff and physical at least when it comes to matches. But as female football players they don’t recognise their own experiences in broadcasted football matches from male premier league matches as female football is played in a different way. A negative perspective on gender position available for young football-playing girls then seems to be restricted by the clear affluence in favour for male football represented by media. There is also a strong allusion to separate male and female football, where the latter part has to adapt to the hierarchical structures in the ideology of football. In society sports organizations and Sport Media mediates value systems of norms and regulations supplied by the football club and the team’s coaches from a dominant power position of discursive practices and power. At the same time the girls own processes of meaning making are at work, were experiences and media use both negotiate or stand in opposition to sport ideologies and gender ideals.     Other TV-genres like reality soaps discussed here, encourage young women to take good care of their appearance by diets, dressing codes and make up, to fit into the hegemonic ideals for femininity. All media representations support the cultural conventions existing on gender differences by differentiate their audience as either feminine or masculine subjects by offering separate gender closed spheres with different hegemonic positions in sports and as well as in other media content for men and women (Hirdman 2002). For young teenaged girls this might seem difficult to find a self-confident gender identity by them selves because of the manifest demands in modern society implies this as a personal duty for us to fix. A positive perspective however suggests the possibilities for these girls use of different media genres as means to reflect over their gender identities in a supportive culture where female football is accepted as something different from male football. As gender qualities not are fixed to certain sexes female football-players also must deserve the acknowledgement of playing the game in a different way. Perhaps these girls own appropriations by positions in gender structured discourses shows the way for how female football in the future have the possibilities to earn acceptance in society and media as a sport performance for its own sake and not as a treat to a protected masculinity in decline.  A brief conclusion then shows the representation of team sports in Sport Media still are built on an ideological understanding of football as a typical masculine field of action, where female football always has a subordinate position. The cultural demands on women (and men) are to adjust to a society where football for men and women are considered as two separate spheres, concealed and supported by the global sport media content.

In the sport industry, many stakeholders, including sport organizations, players, coaches, sports reporters, and fans, utilize Twitter. Twitter has become a practical marketing tool, in part, although Twitter users have not been studied in terms of sociodemographics, team identification, media consumption, team related Twitter consumption, or game consumption of their favorite team. Exploring the demographics and consumptive behavior of Twitter users can be valuable for sport organizations to create marketing plans and make managerial decisions. The purpose of this study was to determine the makeup of sport consumers on Twitter for market segmentation purposes and examine their sport media consumption levels, sport-related Twitter usage, team identification level, and team consumption. Differences between Generation X and Y consumers were also determined. An online survey was administered to Twitter users (N = 219). Descriptive statistics, chi-square analyses and MANOVAs revealed characteristics about the users.

Marketing in social media has been studied extensively in recent years, but not specifically for extreme-sport oriented companies. Even though most of the extreme-oriented companies are using social media for marketing, only a few pay special attention to its risks and possibilities. The purpose of this study is to identify extreme-sport oriented companies' practices to use social media as a marketing tool. I interviewed eight extreme- oriented companies and athletes. In addition to interviews, I also performed a four weeks observation in social media, mostly in Facebook and Twitter, and made notions about companies' practices in using social media for marketing. Almost all interviewed companies (88 %) were using social media. They usually posted updates about once a week and did not have a marketing strategy. However, it is possible that larger companies, which were not directly interviewed in this study, have a clear strategy for marketing in social media. Interviewed companies used social media in an improvised and unplanned manner. However, through trial and error, extreme-sport oriented companies have found their way to use social media effectively. Writing posts in social media about new products, upcoming events, offers, extreme-sport pictures or films and up-to-date information about the company seemed to be a good way to use social media for marketing. Most of the extreme-sport oriented companies can find social media a very useful marketing tool, but only if they have resources and time to invest to be active on social media.

This research looks to understand the role digital media plays to inspire and sustain sports participation and how digital media could be used as a socially inclusive tool. The study explores if strategically packaged digital media could be used in a socially inclusive way to increase or sustain sports participation. This would address one of the problems facing sports organisations, as sports participation is decreasing or at least stagnating both in South Africa and on a global scale. This study followed an exploratory, inductive approach, using Self-determination Theory (SDT) developed by Deci and Ryan (1985) as a theoretical framework. The paper looks to understand what research has been done to understand how people are motivated to participate in sport and the proven theories that have been tested (Pelletier et al., 1995) to understand the role of intrinsic motivation has as a powerful indicator of intention. This study made use of a qualitative, cross-sectional design and data was collected through semi-structured interviews with active participants based in Langa, Cape Town. The findings of this study showed the participants regularly accessed digital media in a manner which strongly aligned with the literature and has been shown to increase intrinsic motivation, which leads to action. The findings further show that sports media can be used as a tool for social inclusion, despite the participants socio-economic status they regularly accessed online sports content for motivational and learning purposes. Based on the findings of this research, sports organisations need to consider digital media as a viable and socially inclusive way to sustain or even increase sports participation.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2009.
Thesis research directed by: Dept. of Kinesiology. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

Over the past twenty years, the America’s Cup has grown into a significant media event in the New Zealand public sphere. This thesis focused on the New Zealand print media coverage of the 2007 regatta in Spain, analysing how different newspapers framed their coverage of the event, before interviewing the journalists who provided the stories to understand the constraints under which they worked. The analysis recorded and coded all stories relating to the America’s Cup in four of New Zealand’s daily metropolitan newspapers between April 2, 2007 and July 15, 2007. This thesis found that although the America’s Cup had shifted from between a competition between nations as the role of big-business increased, the New Zealand print media continued to focus on Emirates Team New Zealand, even though a significant number of New Zealanders were competing for foreign-based entries. The role of big businesses, including the New Zealand Government, went largely unreported in the New Zealand print media. Interviews with the journalists would suggest that their main role in Valencia was to report the racing, with limited time outside of this to report on other aspects of the event.

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTITUIÇÕES COMUNITÁRIAS DE ENSINO PARTICULARES
Esta dissertação procura identificar razões para a possível incorporação de um modismo esportivo à identidade social do consumidor, a partir de sua exposição nas redes sociais a postagens de conteúdo e imagens referentes a um esporte, no caso o Crossfit. Foram conduzidas entrevistas, com duração média de 40 minutos, com 10 mulheres praticantes do esporte e idades entre 18 e 39 anos. Os dados coletados foram tratados qualitativamente por meio de análise de conteúdo latente, de cunho interpretativo. Foram desvendadas evidências de que modismo é o principal ponto de partida para a prática do Crossfit, com indícios claros de incorporação do modismo à identidade social, a partir da incorporação de conceitos do esporte à vida individual e social do praticante, desde a forma de vestir até mudanças de comportamentos, como alterações nos hábitos alimentares, na autoconfiança e na autoestima e migração para novos grupos sociais, mais adequados à nova identidade. As razões declaradas pelos entrevistados para a incorporação do modismo vão desde sensações idealísticas, absorvidas durante a exposição e a observação de fotografias postadas em redes sociais, relacionadas a um esporte desafiador e motivador de superação, até sua identificação com características do praticante que exibiu suas fotografias e comentários em rede social.
This thesis aims to evaluate the reasons for the incorporation of a sport fad to the identity, from the exposure on social networks to postings of content and images related to a particular sport, in this case Crossfit. To achieve this goal, 40-minute individual interviews were performed with 10 women between 18 and 39 years old, all of them Crossfit practitioners. The data collected were qualitative analyzed, through content analysis, of an interpretative nature. As a result, it was concluded that faddism is the main starting point for the practice of Crossfit. Clear evidences of incorporation of this faddism to the identity were found, like the absorption of the sport concepts to the individual and social life, from the way of dressing to behavioral changes, such as in eating habits, self-confidence, self-esteem and the migration to new social groups. The reasons declared by the interviewers for this faddism incorporation range from idealistic sensations, absorbed during the exposure and observation of photos posted on the social medias, related to a challenging and overcoming motivation sport, to the identification with personal characteristics of the user s practitioner identity, exhibited on pictures and through comments in social networking sites.

Master of Science
Department of Journalism and Mass Communications
Steven Smethers
The college sports industry is seeing a change in its marketing strategies with the rise of the popularity of social media. Facebook and Twitter are the two most common social networking sites used by intercollegiate athletic departments. Not only are these outlets used to foster two-way communication with fans, but they are also used as advertising and public relations tools. The purpose of this study is to compare the Kansas State University of Intercollegiate Athletics’ social media objectives and content with the level of satisfaction among representatives of the K-State fan base. Is the athletic department producing the social media content that their fans want to see? In order to gain a better understanding of the nature of the study, in-depth interviews were conducted with various staff members in the K-State Department of Intercollegiate Athletics to determine the social media objectives and to gather their opinions on the content. From there, two focus groups were conducted to ascertain the level of satisfaction among K-State fans with the current content. One group consisted of students while the other group contained K-State alumni. Findings showed that fans were pleased with certain aspects (i.e. score updates on @kstategameday, conciseness of Twitter, videos, etc.) but wanted to see more of other items such as K-State trivia, behind the scenes footage and more on student-athletes. The information gathered was then used to provide suggestions for future social media strategies within the K-State Athletics Department. The recommendations will help to enhance communication with fans and satisfy their social media needs as they relate to K-State Sports.

This report is an analysis of the gender representation in Swedish sports media, a comparison between sport in public service television for adults and children. The study explores the differences between the number of male and female sports in the matter of air time and also the number of male and female appearances in the TV shows. The programs studied in this report are the Swedish SVT’s Sportspegeln and Lilla sportspegeln.  When we began this analysis we were under the impression that men would be over-represented, but that representation in sports television for children would be more gender equal than the adult counterpart. The result of the analysis confirmed previous studies stating that men dominate the sports programs in Swedish public service television. However, we found that the differences in gender representation in Sportspegeln and Lilla sportspegeln was smaller than we thought.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Comparative Media Studies, February 2010.
"October 2009." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 78-94).
A design feature of contemporary sport video games allows elite athletes to play as themselves in life-like representations of actual sporting events. The relation between playing sport video games and actual physical performance has not yet been established. Drawing on data from interviews and observations of elite athletes playing sport video games, this thesis explores why elite athletes are playing these video games as their virtual selves, and establishes a framework for understanding how this play may enhance learning opportunities. Building on theories based in the disciplines of psychoanalysis, education, and neuroscience, this thesis argues that virtual play by athletes playing as themselves in sport video games has the potential to support and encourage physical performance.
by Lauren Silberman.
S.M.

This research assesses cultural meanings attributed to Asian American sport celebrities, focusing specifically on former professional tennis player Michael Chang and professional golfer Michelle Wie. This work will examine how they are represented in mainstream American media and how their images have been used in various advertising campaigns. A key assumption of this research is that cultural stakeholders are involved in their particular media representations. Given that Asian American athletes have occupied peripheral positions in American sport, media and their invisibility in advertising campaigns, the recent commodification of Asian American athletic bodies is worth examining in greater detail. Drawing on Susan Birrell and Mary McDonald's (1999, 2000) “reading sport” methodology, I critically read their representations in mainstream media and television commercials to explore the complexity and particularity of the articulation of power lines surrounding these Asian American sport celebrities. The “reading sport” methodology emphasizes the particularity of power relations and interdependence of lines of power. Accordingly, I situate his or her representations in the different contexts that each athlete had to encounter. Chang's representation is situated within the conservative climate of post-Reagan America, and Wie's representation is situated within the context neoliberal racism and postfeminism. This study provides a broad understanding of the media representations of Asian American athletes and their different ideological functions in different contexts. Given that there have been a serious lack of studies regarding Asian American athletes, this study seeks to extend the existing body of knowledge about Asian American athletes and their multiple representations.

This thesis investigated how sport organisations use social media to communicate at international sporting events. Combining participant observation, interviews and Twitter data analysis, it examines two cases – the AFC Asian Cup and Netball World Cup – to document, analyse and compare the creation and implementation of social media strategy. This research uncovered that the development of social media strategy comprises six key pillars: volunteer selection and training, setting objectives, audience segmentation and targeting, platform-based approaches, content creation strategy and moderation of fan conversation. However, within these foundational categories, the specific strategy enacted varies, depending on the event's position in the market.

The portrayal of Muslims in British mainstream media, particularly newspapers, is a subject of significant academic interest. Previous studies find that British newspapers frequently represent Muslims as a distinct and homogenous group, associating them with terrorist groups and framing them as a cultural threat. Orientalist representations have been observed, depicting Muslims as inherently problematic. Nevertheless, Muslims' own self-representation remains understudied and underexamined. This research analyses the discourse of the Muslim News, the oldest, most enduring English-language newspaper catering to Muslims in the United Kingdom. Using Corpus Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis, this thesis explores the similarities and differences in the discourses of the Muslim News and British mainstream newspapers from 1998 to 2009. The findings reveal that, while reproducing some narratives observed in mainstream press, the Muslim News (the MN) is introducing new representations that 'pitch' alternative stories about Muslims in the media. While sustaining certain representations, such as the collectivisation of Muslims, the MN challenges mainstream discourse. It highlights Islamophobic attacks that Muslims are subject to, including their negative portrayal in mainstream press, and suggests that these hegemonic representations are part of a 'Muslim penalty'. Furthermore, the MN counters mainstream news by taking Muslims outside the frames of representation that associate them with terrorism, conflict and violence. Sports coverage consistently emerges in the MN as an important space to re-negotiate and reframe mainstream media discourses on Muslims. Sports stories maintain newsworthiness while enabling the MN to diverge from the negative coverage of Muslims in mainstream press and celebrate Muslim champions. Comparing such representations in a newspaper by and for Muslims to those produced by mainstream press further exposes contemporary Orientalist discourses and should be a subject of further study.

De senaste åren har trenden att använda en second screen i samband med tv-tittande ökat till följd av den ökade användningen av smartphones och surfplattor. Det ökade second screen-användandet medför att innehållet som visas på tv får mindre uppmärksamhet av tittarna. En möjlig lösning för att motverka detta är så kallade programspecifika second screen-applikationer som syftar till att komplettera innehållet som visas på tv och ge tittaren ett mervärde. Denna rapport syftar till att identifiera användningsmönster för en programspecifik second screen-applikation som används under livesända ishockeymatcher samt vilka faktorer som påverkar mönstren. Applikationen består av ett flöde som innehåller inlägg relaterade till matchen, t.ex. kommentarer och videoklipp från sportprofiler samt frågor som tittaren kan besvara och därmed se andra tittares åsikter om olika situationer i matchen. Rapporten diskuterar även förslag på hur resultaten kan användas vid utformandet av flödesbaserade second screen-applikationer samt hanteringen av innehållet i flödet. För att identifiera användningsmönstren utfördes användarobservationer, direkt följda av kompletterade intervjuer, under fem direktsända ishockeymatcher med fem olika användare som ensamma tittade på en match. Resultaten av studien visar att användningsmönstren huvudsakligen påverkas av de olika delarna i sändningen (speltid, studioanalys och reklamavbrott) samt spänningen i matchen. De olika funktionerna i applikationen samt användandet av andra applikationer är också faktorer som påverkar användandet. Resultaten visar även att användarna värdesätter att känna samhörighet med andra som tittar på matchen när de tittar på en match ensam.
The trend of interacting with a second screen while watching TV has evolved over the past years with the increased usage of smartphones and tablets. One program genre in which second screen usage is common is sports. The increasing second screen usage has made it challenging to keep viewers engaged in the content being shown on the TV. A possible solution to this problem is program-specific second screen applications that serve to complement the TV content and give an added value to the viewer. This paper aims to identify usage patterns of a program-specific second screen application, used during broadcasts of live hockey games. The application consists of a feed that contains posts related to the game such as comments and videos posted by sport profiles and editors, and polls that the viewer can answer to see other viewers’ thoughts about different situations in the game. Moreover, the paper analyzes what factors affect the usage patterns and discusses how the findings could be used when developing and managing the content of a feed-based second screen application during a sports game. To identify the usage patterns of the application a triangulation approach was used. Five user observations, directly followed by complementing semi-structured interviews were conducted during five separate live hockey games broadcast on TV. The results show that the usage patterns of the application are mainly affected by the excitement and the different parts of the broadcast (game time, studio analysis and commercial breaks), the different features of the application and the usage of other applications. Moreover, the results highlight the importance of feeling connected to other remote viewers of the game through the application when watching a game alone.

The research examines and explores the differences and similarities between how the social media platform of Facebook is used in the context of the basketball industry. The research centers on the respective Finnish and Swedish basketball leagues. More precisely, the study scrutinizes nine basketball teams social media representatives – four Finnish and five Swedish – perceptions on how their respective sport clubs act on the medium of Facebook, through the use of relevant marketing theories. “How do Swedish and Finnish basketball clubs manage their brands and fan clubs on Facebook?” In the recent years sport marketing has been researched extensively, however the research on sport marketing has focused solely on more established sport leagues (e.g. National Basketball Association, Premier League among other bigger leagues). The major emphasis in sport marketing has been on bigger leagues; this research focuses on the smaller and less established leagues of Finland and Sweden. There is a limited or no literature to be found of sport marketing, which specifically focuses on smaller national leagues. Additionally, the study adds knowledge to a relatively new and evolved way of marketing. Social media marketing research is at its infantry stage, at least when considering research done in more traditional marketing, thus the research could add knowledge to this young marketing sphere. The study is based on a social constructivist approach, where the social actor creates reality. The teams’ social media representatives had their own unique interpretations of team’s actions on the social media platform of Facebook. Moreover, the primarily reason for the study was to create understanding of the perceptional Facebook practices used by two countries basketball teams. The main research question was divided into three research objectives to get more accurate results. Relevant theories of branding and customer relationship management, where emphasis is on relationship marketing, were used to answer the three more specific research objectives. More specifically the theory of relationship marketing is used to identify the teams’ relationship management practices on the social media platform of Facebook and the theory of brand equity was used to understand how the teams’ build their brand image on the medium. Additionally, appropriate organizational definitions are used to recognize the underlying reasons why the sample teams are motivated to use the platform of Facebook. The results indicated that there were both similarities inside the examined country’s teams’ perceptions of Facebook activities and differences between these perceptional practices. However, the differences were of a lessening degree than similarities. Similarly, the country comparison showed that there were only minor differences between Facebook practices used by two countries’ club practices. The study gives a sound general view of smaller and less established sport league teams, thus the study could give a good foundation for further studies on other smaller and less established countries sport league clubs. Furthermore, it could also be used as a building block for a more extensive study, where perceptions of multiple club key stakeholders could be compared with each other to find similarities and differences between their perceptions gaps.

In this study, the grounded theory approach was used to conduct a qualitative study about the effects the media has on rugby players in the United States. This study involved in-depth interviews with American-born-and-raised rugby players from the top rugby colleges and universities in the United States. These interviews helped identify the role played by traditional and social media in encouraging new players to begin playing the sport of rugby. Results showed that traditional media did not play a large role in bringing out new players in the United States. However newer, social media played a much larger role. New players also emerged through interpersonal communications with others, usually their friends and family. The media was useful in making rugby more important in the lives of the players once they began playing, and recruiting was bolstered by the use of social media. Other results show that another reason rugby players tend to continue playing is because of the bonds of friendship they build with their teammates.

This thesis investigates how the sports retailer XXL All sports united communicated throughtheir three crises during 2019. Considering that the crises were of different natures XXL isespecially interesting due to the possibility of comparing how different crises are handled.Within the field of crisis communication we have examined the material on the theoreticalbasis of Sturges, Benoit and Coombs & Holladay. This has been done through text analysis ofXXL:s Facebook posts and comments, statements in the press and press releases. Throughthis we were able to determine what kind of strategies were used and how they controlled theflow of information. The results indicate that crisis communication within XXL is notadjusted on what kind of crisis they are facing but rather adjusted by whether the companyconsider themselves guilty to the claimed offense or not.

Den här studien ska belysa hur public service-bolaget SVT och det kommersiella mediehuset Expressen profilerar sina sportjournalister, men även hur SVT:s och Expressens profilerade journalister använder sociala medier och främst Twitter. Vidare ska studien även belysa om det går att se en kopplingmellan hur mediebolagen profilerar sina journalister till teorier om varumärkesstrategier. I uppsatsen används en kvantitativ innehållsanalys, där vi undersökte SVT Sports och Sportexpressens webbsidors löpsedlar för att se hur de framhäver sina journalister på löpsedlarna under två veckors tid. Det användes även en kvalitativ undersökning med intervjuer med en chef och två profilerade journalister från varjemediebolag för att ge sin syn på profilering och hur de utvalda journalisterna blev profilerade journalister. Resultatet visar att Expressen framhävde sina journalister mer på webbsidans löp än SVT. Däremot visade den kvalitativa undersökningen att bådamediebolagen arbetar aktivt med att profilera sina journalister.Vidare visar även resultatet att de profilerade journalisterna på Expressen och SVT har egenskaper som sticker ut från mängden och att de på så sätt är unika profiler. Resultatet visar också att de profilerade journalisterna är en del av mediehusens sätt att positionera sig gentemot konkurrenterna. Krönikor, blogginlägg och intervjuer med experter är de vanligaste sätten att profilera sportjournalister. Profilering kommer helt enkelt av tyckande från de egna journalisterna och på så sätt får de också synas i högre grad. Utifrån resultatet går det att titulera sportjournalister som ”semi-varumärken” eftersom det finns tendenser till att vissa strategierfungerar på profilerade sportjournalister liksom på produkter medan andra strategierenbart är lämpade för produkter.

Syfte och frågeställning Syftet med studien är att öka kunskapen om hur barns hälsa framställs i media. Studiens frågeställning är följande: 1) Vilka framställningar av barns hälsa förekommer i dagspress under år 2019, och vilka synsätt på hälsa framträder ur dessa framställningar? Metod För att besvara studiens frågeställning genomfördes en diskursanalytisk litteraturstudie av media utifrån en kvalitativ ansats. I studien undersöktes tryckt press och digital press. Innehållsanalys användes för att strukturera materialet i vanligast förekommande teman. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten har främst varit Antonovskys hälsoteori. Resultat Studiens resultat visar att det i många av tidningsartiklarna både förekommer en salutogen och en patogen diskurs. Sammantaget för samtliga artiklar är det dock tydligt att argumentering för barns hälsa ofta sker utifrån en patogen diskurs. I många av de artiklar som hade en salutogen diskurs överlag förekom ändå argumentering för barns hälsa utifrån ett patogent perspektiv. Vid analysen av resultatet framträder en komplex bild där det inte är entydigt att antingen den salutogena diskursen eller den patogena diskursen ensamt råder. Slutsats Sammanfattningsvis bidrar studien till en ökad kunskap om medias framställningar av barns hälsa. I många av artiklarna förekommer både en salutogen och en patogen diskurs. Den här studien tyder på att argumentering för barns hälsa ofta sker utifrån en patogen diskurs. Vid analysen av artiklarna gjordes tolkningen att argument av patogen karaktär används för att framhäva betydelsen av argumenten. Det finns artiklar som uppvisade renodlade diskurser för det salutogena eller det patogena synsättet men i de artiklar där båda diskurserna förekom samverkade de båda synsätten på ett komplext sätt.

This dissertation investigated the influence of legitimacy and social media on organizational image management (IM) in North American professional sport. The author used a social theory approach to public relations in which legitimization is a core function, stakeholders influence the organization’s identity, and communicating identity is a legitimacy-seeking action that co-creationally drives organizational IM. This study examined the Ottawa Sport and Entertainment Group (OSEG), a conglomerate sport organization, using a qualitative embedded exploratory case study, which allowed analysis at different organizational levels, online and offline, using thematic and content analysis. The first two research questions explored the relationships between identity, image, and legitimacy in a social media world. The second two explored the explicit effects of social media on identity, legitimacy, image, and how these constructs manifest through social media. The first phase of the study used interview (N-52) and document (N-4) analyses to explore how identity, image, and legitimacy interact. Results showed that organizations’ legitimacy-seeking behaviour drives IM. The impetuous to change image comes from the outward facing legitimacy-seeking negotiation of image with external stakeholders. In phase two, using the legitimacy framework developed by Lock, Filo, Kunkel, and Skinner (2015), 5,668 tweets and retweets were coded, revealing 10 communicated image themes that sought technical, managerial, personal, and linkage legitimacy. These types of legitimacy were present in 99.5% of tweets and retweets. They sought to build trust, reinforce an image and identity of community involvement, and create conformity pressure. Such activities indirectly encouraged or legitimized expressions of fan support while inhibiting dissenting opinions. Previous research noted that identity and its expression through image are no longer defined solely by organizations. This study sought to extend image and identity research by suggesting legitimacy judgments drive co-creational identity and image change. The research extended Gioia, Hamilton, and Patvardhan’s (2014) process model of identity-image interdependence, creating a new framework for Twitter IM. The research explored how social media technology develops organizational identity, image, and legitimacy to provide insights necessary for fostering the effective use of IM and sport PR’s role within it.

The rise of the digital technology, social networking or interactivity have an extensive impact on what is happening in virtual world. Users of Internet are more and more often introduced to the new available on-line tools. Some of them have adapted those new trends with no problems and they have been taking an advantage of them with an ease, whereas others have had problems with converting themselves into the new digital era. Alternatively, others are not fascinated by what Internet offers or they simply cannot afford it due to many circumstances. However, with no doubts, we can say that the Internet and the digital revolution brought about many issues to discuss or to have a research about. To some extent, new trends, especially the expansion of the Internet, are affecting all traditional media and this, in my opinion, might result in the new phenomena like potential division of society into Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants proposed by Prensky (2001a).The project focused on investigating motives for choosing sport websites by both groups with special consideration of interactivity factor. The motives have been checked via in-depth interviews using the sample of ten interviewees both private and professional users of Polish sport informative websites. I wanted to check whether my results either duplicate what Prensky described in his articles or they confirm contradictive opinion given by VanSlyke.Additionally, I have compared those most popular motives with sample of five most often visited Polish sport informative websites, according to Alexa rank (2012). The level of interactivity on those websites was assessed by an appearance of examples of new new media like blogs, podcasts, number of posts on Facebook fan pages, created account on Twitter or channel on YouTube (Levinson, 2010). Also possibility of commenting was taken into consideration. Having checked those variables via cyber ethnography method (secondary method) I was able to identify which of the sampled websites could be considered as most interactive one.Despite persisting limitations, the method has brought reliable and valid data, according to which I have given my conclusions by answering research questions stated at the beginning of this project.

La thèse traite de la couverture médiatique des sports dans les journaux et notamment, de la dimension sociale du phénomène sportif dans ces médias. Le sport bénéficie d'une couverture médiatique massive. Cependant, et bien que l'étendue du sport médiatique permette de présenter, en principe, une multiplicité de sujets et d'angles d'analyse, la couverture des sports a tendance, en réalité, à se concentrer sur un éventail relativement limité de sujets (les athlètes les mieux payés, les tournois les plus lucratifs, etc.). A partir de cette préoccupation centrale, à savoir si la couverture médiatique des sports reflète ou non l’ampleur du phénomène sportif, l'étude a été consacrée à l'élaboration d'une taxonomie de thèmes qui permette de définir cette plus ample “dimension sociale” dans la couverture médiatique du sport. Cette taxonomie, conçue à la fois comme un outil conceptuel et opérationnel, est au cœur de l'étude. L'analyse s'est ensuite centrée sur les résultats de l’analyse de contenu de plus de 6.500 pages de journaux, en prenant la presse italienne comme étude de cas. L'analyse a été menée en vue de comparer l'analyse sociale du sport dans la couverture des journaux généralistes avec celle des journaux sportifs. Cette approche constitue également une contribution significative à la connaissance, les journaux sportifs n'étant pratiquement jamais considérés comme une catégorie à part entière. L'Italie a été choisie, entre autres, pour la présence de plusieurs journaux sportifs. Enfin, compte tenu de la chute de la diffusion des journaux, la thèse s’intéresse aussi au potentiel commercial – ou “business case” – de l’analyse sociale dans la couverture des sports, en montrant pourquoi celle-ci est susceptible d’attirer, de manière peut-être inattendue, de nouveaux lecteurs
This thesis focuses on the coverage of sport-related matters of social relevance in daily newspapers. Sports benefit from massive media coverage but even though the extent of sports reporting allows to deliver, in principle, a multiplicity of subjects and angles of analysis, the coverage of sports tends, in reality, to focus on a limited span of topics (the wealthiest sports and athletes, the most lucrative tournaments, etc.). Moving from the concern about whether or not the coverage of sports reflects the full extent of the sporting phenomenon, the study has engaged in the elaboration of a new taxonomy of topics to define the wider “social dimension”, or social analysis, in the media coverage of sports. This taxonomy, intended as both a conceptual and operational tool, is at the core of the study. The thesis has then engaged in the content analysis of over 6,500 newspaper pages, taking the Italian press as a case study. The analysis has been conducted with a view to compare social analysis in the coverage by general-interest newspapers with that in sports-specialised newspaper. This approach also constitutes a significant contribution to knowledge, as sports newspapers are hardly ever examined as a category in its own right. Italy was chosen, among other reasons, for the presence of multiple sports newspapers. Finally, considering the current decline of press circulation, the thesis also shows the business potential – or “business case” – of social analysis in the coverage of sport, and why this can attract, perhaps unexpectedly, new readers

I denna uppsats undersöks dagstidningen Svenska Dagbladet under de dagar de olympiska spelen hålls vid fyra olika årtal för att studera medias bild av kvinnor som idrottar. Undersökningen tar sin början vid år 1912, därefter följer åren 1948 och 1968 för att sedan avslutas vid det senaste OS-tillfället år 2008. Vid de dagar tävlingarna hölls, som varierar i antal, har tidningarna som gavs ut de två första dagarna, de två dagarna i mitten och de två avslutande dagarna studerats och analyserats för att skapa en bild av tidningens attityd till idrottsutövande kvinnor. Några generella slutsatser från resultatet kan inte göras, däremot ges en inblick i hur attityden till kvinnor och idrott utvecklats under 94 år. Resultatet från denna uppsats kan användas för att förstå var de normer och attityder vi har idag grundar sig. Det framkommer i studien att synen på kvinnliga idrottsutövare och bilden media målar upp av dem har förändrats enormt mycket under denna period och på flera olika plan. En stor förändring är den syn på vilken idrott som kvinnor bör utöva och den som män bör utöva där vi kan se att acceptansen för vilka idrotter som är för kvinnor blir större för varje år. En utvecklingsprocess vars rötter sitter i än idag till en viss del.

Syftet med undersökningen är att utöka förståelsen på vilket sätt media förmedlar idrott ur ett genusperspektiv, och diskutera dess konsekvenser. Vi vill med undersökningen få en ökad insyn i medias makt kring föreställningar om kvinnligt och manligt på sportsidorna. Vi har med hjälp av kvantitativ innehållsanalys i kombination med kvalitativ textanalys argumenterat kring olika tänkbara svar. Underlaget för vår studie baseras på ett omfattande kodningsschema där sportbilagan i Dagens Nyheter (DN) under februari månad 2011 utgjort empirin. Resulta-ten av kodningsschemat har jämförts med litteratur om genus, media och idrott. Till detta har vi valt att även lägga till en maktdimension, för att konstruerandet av kvinnligt och manligt utan detta kan te sig irrelevant och inte lika ingående. Resultaten visar tydligt på kvinnors osynliggörande samt underordning inom sportmediefältet. Vi har även sett att den manliga idrotten inte enbart berör idrottsfältet utan tillåts även att bedriva makt och kontroll på andra fält. Slutsatsen vi drar är att tidningarna således har en viss makt att forma vårt tänkesätt om kvinnligt och manligt inom idrotten där dagordningsfunktionen är central.
This essay aims to increase understanding of how the media conveys sport from a gender perspective, and discuss its consequences. With this essay we try to broaden our knowledge of media power on the subject of femininity and masculinity on the sports pages. We have been using quantitative content analysis combined with qualitative text analysis to discuss different possible answers. The center of our study is based on a comprehensive coding scheme where sports addition in Dagens Nyheter (DN) in February 2011 formed the empirical data. Results of the encoding scheme have been compared to and analyzed with the help of literature on gender, media and sports. For this we have decided to also add a power dimension to the con-struction of femininity and masculinity, because without this it may seem irrelevant and lose its complexity. The results show clearly on women's marginalization and subordination in the sports media field. We have also seen that the male sport is not confined only to the sports field but also allowed to carry power and control in other fields. The conclusion we draw is that the papers thus have a certain power to shape our idea of femininity and masculinity in sports where agenda setting is central to this function.

La thèse analyse les modes de production de valeur et les mécanismes du travail dans un milieu particulier, celui de l'escalade, en empruntant les outils conceptuels de recherches menées dans le domaine de la création. En s'appuyant sur de récentes investigations sur le travail créateur réalisées dans les mondes de l'art, de la mode ou de la communication, cette étude appréhende la figure du grimpeur professionnel comme le résultat d'un processus collectif d'élaboration mobilisant différents groupes d'acteurs. En travaillant ensemble, ceuxci vont produire un idéal, celui du « professionnel » qui, grâce au soutien des marques, des entreprises ou des fédérations, voyage à travers le monde afin de réaliser sa passion. Cette enquête ethnographique menée entre 2012 et 2014 aux Etats-Unis et en Europe de l'Ouest avec certains des meilleurs grimpeurs professionnels mondiaux, des photographes, des vidéastes, des journalistes ou encore des membres de l'industrie spécialisée permet d'éclairer la construction de la « professionnalité » et les mécanismes de travail qui lui sont associés. Il est question, d'une part, d'étudier comment et pourquoi des individus travaillent ensemble et, d'autre part, d'analyser l'organisation et la structuration de ce travail créateur. En effet, derrière le sens et les représentations associés à la figure du « grimpeur professionnel » qui se dédie exclusivement à la réalisation d'une activité primaire, l'escalade, le travail de ce dernier repose fondamentalement sur la polyvalence professionnelle. Ainsi, cette étude explore le quotidien de ceux qui ont atteint le sommet de leur art et fait le pari audacieux que l'analyse réalisée contribue à la connaissance du travail créateur tel qu'il est analysé dans d'autres domaines
This research analyzes the production of value and the transformations of work and labor in climbing by drawing on the conceptual tools of recent research in the realm of creation. Building on studies of creative work in the worlds of art, fashion and communication, this research captures the persona of the professional climber as the result of a collective process of elaboration carried out by different groups of actors. By working together, they produce an ideal of the “professional”, who, thanks to the support of brands, companies and sports federations, travels across the world for climbing. An ethnographic research, conducted between 2012 and 2014 in the USA and Western Europe with some of the best professional climbers, photographers, filmmakers, and industry members, sheds light on the crafting of “professionalism” and the related mechanisms of work. The aim of the research, on the one hand, is to study how and why people work together and, on the other hand, to analyze the organization and structure of this creative work. In fact, beyond the meaning and representations associated with the persona of the professional climber whose work revolves exclusively on the primary task of climbing, the work of professional climbers is fundamentally multilayered. Therefore, this research explores the everyday livelihood of the ones who are at the top of their game and contributes to the knowledge of creative work as it has been studied in other areas

Den här uppsatsen är tänkt att undersöka fenomenet e-sport och hur det har framställts i svenska dagstidningars tryckta upplagor. E-sport har existerat sedan tidigt 90-tal som en form av subkultur men har sedan millennieskiftet och under 2010-talet i synnerhet växt med enorma proportioner. Det är just tidsperioden 2010–2019 som den här undersökningen kommer handla om, hur ett relativt nytt fenomen har rapporterats i traditionella stora dagstidningar det senaste årtiondet. Först kommer uppsatsen ge en bakgrund av ämnet och presentera sin problemformulering, sina frågeställningar och syftet med vad arbetet vill analysera. Vidare ges en redogörelse för valet av material och metod ges sedan för att ge läsaren en bild av hur arbetet är utfört. Sedan kommer uppsatsen presentera det resultat som arbetet har gett och det görs en ”mixed methods research” där både kvantitativa och kvalitativa metoder kommer användas. Artiklar inom ämnet kommer att räknas och presenteras i tabeller och diagram, samt återkommande diskurser lyfts fram och analyseras. Detta för att se vilka olika teman och vinklar rapporteringen om e-sport har tagit under den utvalda tidsperioden för uppsatsens arbete.

Gabor Bora är examinator för den aktuella uppsatsen medan Per Vesterlund är examinator för hela kursen.