Investigating Basketball Twitter: a Community Examination Of
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INVESTIGATING BASKETBALL TWITTER: A COMMUNITY EXAMINATION OF SERIOUS LEISURE INFORMATION PRACTICES By JACOB SANCHEZ A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey In partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Communication, Information, and Media Written under the direction of Ross Todd And approved by _______________________ _______________________ _______________________ _______________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey MAY, 2020 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Investigating Basketball Twitter: A Community Examination of Serious Leisure Information Practices By JACOB SANCHEZ Dissertation Director: Ross Todd Serious leisure studies in Library and Information Science have focused on the educational and work contexts to the detriment of leisure contexts (Stebbins, 2009). The metatheoretical position to support this view is based in social constructivism (Taljia, Tuominen, & Savolainen, 2005). A synthesis of key claims in serious leisure research is used to create the base knowledge of the serious leisure community. By identifying gaps in the research at the theoretical, topic, contextual, and methodological levels, this following research seeks to address the following research problem: What can we learn about serious leisure in library and information science in the online community of basketball twitter? The proposed dissertation investigates: (1) the serious leisure practices of the basketball twitter community; (2) the positive and negative impacts of the serious leisure information practices in the community; and (3) how, if at all, do these information practices shape the power structure of different groups in the community. Findings are examined in relation to the fields of human information behavior and practices, serious leisure, sport, and social media. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. ii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.2.1 Definition of Serious Leisure ........................................................................... 1 1.3.1 Rationale for study .......................................................................................... 2 1.4.1 Research Questions ......................................................................................... 4 1.5.1 Significance of the study ................................................................................. 5 1.6.1 Implications for research ................................................................................. 5 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................. 7 2.1 Theoretical Framework and Literature Review ........................................................... 7 2.1.1 Metatheoretical Positions in Library and Information Science ......................... 7 2.1.2 Everyday Life Information Seeking ................................................................. 9 2.1.3 Methodologies used in Everyday Life Information Seeking ........................... 10 2.2 Serious Leisure Defined as a Concept .................................................................. 13 2.3 Synthesis of Key Claims in Serious Leisure Research .......................................... 15 2.3.1 Organization schemes.................................................................................... 15 2.3.2 Social dimensions ......................................................................................... 16 2.3.3 Socio-economic status ................................................................................... 17 2.3.4 Groups of likeminded individuals .................................................................. 17 2.3.5 Group information ......................................................................................... 18 2.3.6 Internet support ............................................................................................. 19 2.3.7 LIS theories ................................................................................................... 19 2.3.8 Situated learning ........................................................................................... 20 iii 2.3.9 Social learning .............................................................................................. 21 2.3.10 Information needs........................................................................................ 21 2.3.11 Information sharing ..................................................................................... 22 2.3.12 Information use ........................................................................................... 23 2.3.13 Information experience ................................................................................ 23 CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL GAPS .......................................................................... 26 3.1 Theoretical gaps in literature introduction ................................................................ 26 3.2 Gap 1: Information practices and behaviors.......................................................... 26 3.2.1 Practice theory .............................................................................................. 28 3.2.2 Communities of practice................................................................................ 30 3.2.3 Goffman interaction order and interaction ritual ............................................ 33 3.3 Gap 2: Topic of sport in serious leisure ................................................................ 34 3.3.1 Sport as a serious leisure site ......................................................................... 34 3.4 Gap 3: Context of serious leisure information practices online ............................. 36 3.4.1 Human information behavior research on twitter ........................................... 36 3.4.2 Early categorical examples of users and interactions on Twitter .................... 36 3.4.3 Quantitative research on twitter interactions .................................................. 37 3.4.5 Twitter as a communication network ............................................................. 38 3.4.6 Twitter as imagined audience and self-presentation ....................................... 38 3.5 Social media as a serious leisure site .................................................................... 39 3.5.1 Twitter and the serious leisure framework ..................................................... 39 3.5.2 Sports and Social Media ................................................................................ 42 3.5.3 Virtual worlds and online communities ......................................................... 48 3.5.4 Serious Leisure, social media, and virtual worlds .......................................... 49 iv 3.5.5 Quantitative studies on sports in virtual environments ................................... 50 3.6 Gap 4: Methodological Gap in Virtual Ethnography ............................................. 52 3.6.1 Ethnographic Theory ..................................................................................... 52 3.6.2 Geertz: Ethnography as cultural web of significance...................................... 59 3.6.3 Strengths of virtual ethnography .................................................................... 60 3.6.4 Weaknesses of virtual ethnography ............................................................... 62 3.6.5 Limitations of virtual ethnography ................................................................ 63 3.6.6 Gaps in research in HIB and virtual worlds ................................................... 65 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH DESIGN ............................................................................ 68 4.1.1 Purpose Statement ......................................................................................... 68 4.1.2 Pros and cons of other qualitative methods .................................................... 68 4.2 Ethnographic Theory............................................................................................ 69 4.2.1 Summary of key concepts in Ethnography ..................................................... 69 4.2.2 Malinowski: Rules for entering a site ............................................................ 70 4.2.3 Reflexivity and ethnography in writing culture .............................................. 71 4.2.4 The role of the researcher: Goffman on fieldwork ......................................... 72 4.2.5 Ethnographic Principles................................................................................. 74 4.3 Addressing the Four Main Research Gaps ............................................................ 76 4.3.1 Metatheoretical Gap ...................................................................................... 76 4.3.2 Topical Gap .................................................................................................. 76 4.3.3 Contextual Gap ............................................................................................. 77 4.3.4 Methodological gap ....................................................................................... 77 4.4 Research design background ...............................................................................