Social Response Analysis: Exploring social media demographic changes in response to sporting events Laura Michelle Hale B.G.S. (Northern Illinois University) M.S.Ed. (Northern Illinois University) Faculty of Arts and Design University of Canberra Australia A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Canberra. October 2015 Abstract This thesis argues that valuable insights into communities of sports followers can be developed through examining changes in their characteristics before and after critical events. Using readily available social media data, it is possible to build a profile of these follower communities and to monitor these data over time. A new methodology called Social Response Analysis is proposed to provide a framework to understand what is occurring around sport teams and events. The examination of several case studies using SRA demonstrates that even in the age of big data, valid and actionable intelligence can still be found using smaller datasets. 2 Copyright Social Response Analysis: Exploring social media demographic changes in response to sporting events by Laura Hale is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License. If you have questions about the copyright, please contact the author. 4 Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without assistant from a number of people, most importantly my primary supervisor Sam Hinton, my parents Joel and Karen Hale, my programmer Ross Mallet, and Nicole Pellegrini and Ryan Rasmussen, who wrote my recommendations during my application process. They have a huge debt of gratitude from me that I will never be able to repay. The final three years of my thesis journey were accompanied by María Sefidari. After the initial research for the thesis had been complete, she had to live with this thesis and me. Dating, living with and eventually marrying a PhD student during their thesis is no easy feat because this period is filled with all sorts of insecurities on the part of the student, of doubts, of having imposter syndrome, of trying to plan a life around thesis submission dates, and of occasionally being asked to be an expert in a topic that you may not be an expert in. María was patient with me throughout this process, was kind, was supportive, and was everything you could ever ask for in a partner. Falling in love with and marrying her I believe benefited me not just because she is wonderful, but because she helped calm me so I could focus on things that matter in life. When this thesis is finished, she deserves her trip to Canberra to watch me graduate because without my wife, this thesis would have been completed but the end game would not have mattered as much. 5 Table of Contents Abstract.......................................................................................................................................................................... 2 Form B: Certificate of Authorship of Thesis ................................................................................................................. 3 Copyright ....................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................................................... 5 Table of Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 6 List of Appendixes......................................................................................................................................................... 9 List of Tables and Figures ........................................................................................................................................... 10 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................. 12 Review of Literature: Sports ........................................................................................................................................ 15 Sport fan typologies ................................................................................................................................................. 15 Sporting events ........................................................................................................................................................ 16 Review of Literature: Methodology ............................................................................................................................ 19 Review of Existing Methodologies .......................................................................................................................... 19 Social media research methodologies. ................................................................................................................. 20 Choosing the appropriate method ........................................................................................................................ 30 Social media data value ........................................................................................................................................... 32 Observational analysis ............................................................................................................................................. 34 Descriptive statistics ................................................................................................................................................ 36 Methodology and data ............................................................................................................................................. 38 Social Response Analysis ............................................................................................................................................ 39 Rationale for Social Response Analysis. ............................................................................................................. 39 Methodology implementation .................................................................................................................................. 41 Specific sites used and their available data. ......................................................................................................... 46 Sample implementation case studies ....................................................................................................................... 48 Popularity of Australian sport on Twitter. ........................................................................................................... 51 Australian fans at the World Cup: Foursquare and Gowalla Checkins. ............................................................... 64 Anna Meares: Twitter growth in response to gold. .............................................................................................. 75 Australian Football League.......................................................................................................................................... 82 Australian Football League Context ........................................................................................................................ 84 Google, the Melbourne Demons, Port Adelaide Power and That Game in Darwin ................................................ 89 Context: Northern Territory and available methodologies. ................................................................................. 89 Data collection procedure and implementation. .................................................................................................. 90 Results. ................................................................................................................................................................ 91 Relation to methodological approach. ................................................................................................................. 92 Derryn Hinch: Journalist traffic Versus Wikipedia Traffic in Response to the St Kilda Controversy .................... 94 Context. ............................................................................................................................................................... 95 6 Data collection procedure. ................................................................................................................................... 95 Results. ................................................................................................................................................................ 95 Relation to methodological approach. ............................................................................................................... 101 Fun with #Fevola @BrendanFevola05 .................................................................................................................. 102 Context. ............................................................................................................................................................. 102 Data collection procedure. ................................................................................................................................. 103 Results. .............................................................................................................................................................