Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Theses and Dissertations 2014-11-01 Rugby's Rise in the United States: The Impact of Social Media On An Emerging Sport Benjamin James Kocher Brigham Young University - Provo Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd Part of the Communication Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Kocher, Benjamin James, "Rugby's Rise in the United States: The Impact of Social Media On An Emerging Sport" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 4332. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/4332 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact
[email protected],
[email protected]. Rugby’s Rise in the United States: The Impact of Social Media on an Emerging Sport Benjamin Kocher A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Jared Johnson, Chair Clark Callahan Dale Cressman Department of Communications Brigham Young University November 2014 Copyright © 2014 Benjamin Kocher All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Rugby’s Rise in the United States: The Impact of Social Media on an Emerging Sport Benjamin Kocher Department of Communications, BYU Master of Arts 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.