Original Plan

The original title of my planned research submitted to the MSU IRB was “Racism in sports: A comparison of collegiate athletes’ descriptions of self.”  The portion of research I intended to do in SOC 985 was to determine the athletes’ perceptions of self through in-person interviews and an online survey.  The method of recruiting participants was to be via email, Twitter, mail, and phone calls.  The first step I took was to use Twitter to contact the athletes and administration at the universities.  This was convenient to my schedule.  Many times I needed to produce communication at late hours that were not conducive to phone calls.  Twitter and email are like voice mail; both are messages that can be viewed at the recipient’s leisure and responses are by choice as opposed to the required replies when answering a direct phone call.

The problem, or potential benefit, from this type of data collection is that I am seeing great amounts of usable data on Twitter regarding the descriptions/perceptions of athletes.  Unfortunately, that data does not fall within the parameters that I am allowed to collect.  At the point of writing this field note, I have sent 36 invitations to athletes to participate in my survey.  It has taken roughly 3-4 hours to generate those invitations.  I have received one response and I am not sure yet if that person even went through with the survey.  In the meantime, I have come across tweets like these:

“Terrell Stoglin has the world’s roundest head.”
@testudotimes
The best source of information on Maryland athletics. Well, at least the bloggiest source.

“HAUKUR PALSSON!!! Iceland Terp! #13″
@JPriv13
Student. Loving Life. Go Lakers, Raiders, Da U, Terps.

Granted, those descriptions are not precisely what I was looking for.  However, they do show that Twitter is a great place to acquire descriptions of athletes.  In 2009, I wrote a paper titled “Challenging traditional gate-keeping power & control: How new media transcended conventional mass media roles.”  I did this in order to better understand mass media and social media, the similarities and differences.  This is important to my research because I have intentions on examining this triad:

1. Media descriptions of athletes
2. Institutional descriptions of athletes (the universities)
3. Athlete’s descriptions of self

But, I’m leaving out one important group: fans.  Initially, I was trying to analyze media/institution/self in order to then see if those together influenced the fans’ perceptions.  In other words, if the institution said “John Doe is a smart player” and the media said “John Doe is a raw athlete” and the player himself said “I am a smart player” then, what would the fan say?  If the fan said “John Doe is a raw athlete” then the fan would have aligned with the media.  This was my initial idea.

In sum, I feel it is still a good idea.  Yet, the order is not necessarily vital to the research.  I could essentially pull data for fans now.  I have a background article about the media descriptions of athletes that I am basing much of that portion of research off of (Denham, Billings, & Halone, 2002).  I have a data set of the universities’ descriptions of athletes that I collected.  I have yet to assemble data on fans or athletes.  Although data on athletes’ own perceptions is vital to my overall research, at this point in time and considering my prior research involving the mass and social media, I believe it is appropriate to key in on fans’ descriptions.

Here is my new plan for the semester

My prior research, and the research of Hove (2009), has discussed the differences between mass and social media.  Within both, fans’ descriptions of athletes can be gathered and examined.  I will gather data from both social and mass media.

Sample 1 – Fans through Mass Media

As of today, there are 128 comments in a Detroit Free Press article titled “Authorities: DPS a victim of computer theft ring” (Dawsey, Walsh-Sarnecki, & Shelton, 2010).  The title of the article includes no mention that one of the suspects is/was a Michigan State University football player.  However, 128 comments discuss that player.

• kahuna70 wrote: “Second chances should come to those who deserve it, not just a spoiled athlete.” (athlete is black)
• alliask wrote: “Dantonio is following the “innocent until proven guilty” line. I”m sure if he’s found guilty, the program will totally disown him.” (athlete is black)
• orionres wrote:”The white dudes must have been the ring leaders.”
• chocolatebanana wrote (Replying to orionres): “Are you insinuating that they [the white dudes] are the smartest of the group?”
• LameDuckBarry wrote: “Are the white guys the brains of the outfit?”
• illustrate wrote: “The MSU football player should be flogged by police at midfield of Spartan Stadium by police. All the others should be flogged too.”

Sample 2 – Mass Media / Social Media Blend

During September 2010, “Junior guard Korie Lucious pleaded guilty to one count of reckless driving Thursday, according to court documents” (Wilkins, 2010).  Prior to that incident, Korie had not experienced that level of public discipline.  There were some comments:

• “How can you attend class when you are in jail? There goes his academic progress and his season. He is BY FAR a worse teammate than Chris Allen.”
• “college athletes are still mostly immature and will make the same kinds of mistakes that ordinary college students make and learn from (or don’t) and graduate (or don’t) and have successful careers (or don’t) and lead mostly normal, good lives”
• “So let me get this straight: Drive drunk as a non-athlete, get a DUI. Drive drunk as an athlete, get a reckless driving ticket???”

There are a couple categories that exist in these comments, references to:

• Academics
• Being a teammate
• Maturity
• Athlete/Non-Athlete relationship

I have already categorized “academics” and I think it is clear that “being a good teammate” and “maturity” are descriptions of the athlete.  The fourth category, athlete/non-athlete, would be great to insert in an analysis of fans’ perceptions of athletes.  Occasionally, athletes communicate with fans:

• “I’m not really askin someone 2 buy me a computer ppl!! RT @bryfill: @KorieLucious34 hey now!! no gifts!! just looking out, haha… go state!”
• “RT @ILoveDMB1983: @KorieLucious34 Hell yea were ready for Spartan basketball baby?” (most likely supposed to be “we’re”)

At other times, the athlete describes himself academically and athletically:

• “Jus got outta class, bout 2 rehab my knee and put some shots up b4 my next class…#jusgottamakeit”
• “I wonder how my life would be if I didn’t hoop…but I do so I’ll never know!!!”
• “Last early lift which means the season here!!! I think it’s the last one I’m not sure lol”
• “Times money it’s that simple…my attitudes f*** the world like a nympho” (probably a hip-hop quote)
• “RT @Morgan_S252: @Money23Green can you please define “goon up” for me—-no u figure it out…and I did better then u on the exam lol”
• “RT @Luciousfresh: gota grind for my moms so she aint gota work”
• “RT @D_Lucious31: Moms need some new furniture for her crib…gota get it for her”

In this brief sample, Korie has mentioned academics, basketball, and life in general.  My research is meant to examine these categories and answer questions like:

• Does the athlete describe himself as powerful, athletic, fast, smart, shooter, passer, good teammate, etc.?  Notice that Korie talks about lifting weights and shooting.
• Does the athlete place importance on academics?  Notice that Korie puts some importance on who did better on an exam.
• How does the athlete relate to his family?  Here, Korie retweets two tweeters with the same last name as him (potential relatives) and discusses “taking care of mom.”

David Kircus is a white football player from the State of Michigan.  Recently, he also was in the news (Deiters, 2010).

• The headline included: “David Kircus… wants to be a role model”
• The article had this quote: “I’m not the bad guy that people read about in the paper,” Kircus said. “In the long term, I want to be a role model for kids.”

There were 21 comments from readers/fans, including:

• Wow…how could anyone let there star fall so far.
• Role Model. Riiiiigghhtt.
• Loser
• I truly hope that he learned his lesson and is ready to be a productive citizen. We all mistakes, it is just that some of us are in the public eye when we make them. I hope he gets back on the field and puts this behind him. I hope that this teaches all us that it is not 1890 and a good barroom brawl after a few rounds is not acceptable anymore.  Enough bad news. Enough bad behavior. Enough coming down on these guys. Learn from it and come back to the “civilized” world.  I was really excited to see a local guy make it, and his fall from grace is another local boy who made it now going bad in front of the world.
• David Kircus and Charles Rogers drafted in the same year by the lions, some job checking character issues MILLEN!!!!
• COCKY KIRCUS is a pretty accurate pseudonym.  He will never be a role model, he is just a bad person.
• I wish him the best but when, exactly, is he planning on starting to turn his life around?
• Man, I would think after pulverising some poor guys face the NFL would want him back. They seem to like the criminals if they can put up points. The scumbag Michael Vick comes to mind. Any crime can be overlooked in professional or college sports. Wasn’t Vick a role model WHEN he was arrested?
• Might as well put him on suicide watch. Right after Charles Rogers.

Because the story is relatively new, there are no tweets referring to Kircus except for those just providing the link to the news story (many of which include “role model”).  What is interesting in the Kircus comments are the references to black professional players Charles Rogers and Michael Vick.  It seems like when a white player is arrested, there are instantaneous correlations drawn to the situation of that individual and the collective black athlete convict.  It would be appropriate then to review a recent article (Oosting, 2010) on Charles Rogers’ legal situation and see if there are similar references to white athlete convicts:

• Ah Yes keeping up that fine spartan tradition.The 3 dumazz amigo wrs rison,burress,and rogers.
• Too bad Braylon Edwards wasn’t a Spartan, huh?
• You don’t have to feel sorry for Rogers but I feel bad for his family. His kids shouldn’t have to pay for daddy’s stupid decision .
• Snooki=Raiola? (short, fat, loud)
• I often wondered if Izzo had a hand in convincing Millen and Mooch to draft Charles.
• LOL at comparing Braylon Edwards to Charles Rogers. Edwards is actually still playing football and has had a decent career, unlike Rogers. Edwards made a mistake, Rogers WAS a mistake. He was never worthy of his draft position and he had “bust” written all over him.

In summary, both Kircus and Rogers were grouped by fans/commenter with other black athletes when discussing legal situations.  Yet, at the same time these incidents were occurring, many white athletes were also involved in legal situations.  For example:

• Roger Clemens (perjury)
• Brett Favre (sexual innuendo)
• Mark McGwire (perjury/steroids)
• Ben Roethlisberger (sexual assault)

Note, I have not done research on the exact charges.  Those are generalized legal connections.  Rogers (2010) discusses much of this in a Black Web Portal blog.

Sample 3 – Social Media Exclusively

As I write this, Ben Roethlisberger is taking his first snaps back after being accused of a sexual crime.  He was suspended by the league for several games (citation needed).  In addition to the standard tweets coming through about his play (e.g. that he threw a pass) there are tweets connecting him to legal trouble like:

• merchantkrystle?: RT @JamilSmith: It’ll be fascinating to see Ben Roethlisberger get more cheers upon returning to an #NFL field than Michael Vick did. Do …
• Prodig_E?: I feel like Ben Roethlisberger is the dumbest QB in the league… He like the only QB in the league who can’t solve the Browns D.
• TheBaseline?: And Steelers fans remember why they love and hate Ben Roethlisberger’s play on the field. He’s a gunslinger and will force the ball….

In a very quick glance at the tweets regarding Roethlisberger, three things become apparent:

1. He is instantly connected to Michael Vick (black athlete convicted of a crime)
2. He is called “dumb”
3. The fans’ love and hate for him is connected to his play on the field and not his legal situation

New Plan

Moving forward, it will be necessary for me to analyze a wide array of descriptions of athletes.  At this time, it would be counterproductive to skip the opportunity to acquire such a great amount of data from Twitter.  As I wait to get athletes to respond to my invitations to take the online survey and undergo an in-person interview, I plan to submit an IRB revision to allow me to collect data from Twitter and public news media websites (comments).

Methodology

In my original Research Proposal, I described how I would conduct an online survey and in-person interviews.  Yet, I failed to include the overall approach I would take.  This was appropriate at the time I submitted my proposal, as I was uncertain, but it is now time to determine what approach I will take.  I will conduct an ethnography with certain similarities and differences to McDermott (2006).  McDermott uses “targeted participant observation… to observe patterns of interaction and behavior by participating in an activity that is indirectly related to the phenomenon of interest.  This method yields rich descriptions, not so much of the members of a community or organization, as of specific social processes of interest that can be observed only while one actively participates in a community’s daily life.”  With this in mind, I cannot use McDermott’s approach to achieve my initial intent: descriptions of the members of a community.  Thus, I will have to realign my thesis statement in order to “do McDermott.”

My original “topic” was described as:

Do athletes convey descriptions of self that are similar or different to those descriptions professed by sports commentators?  The descriptions of athletes by sports commentators will be gained from prior literature (Denham et al., 2002).  The descriptions of self by the individual athletes will be the charge of my research.  I will use survey and interview.

My new thesis question (which forms my paper) will follow this line of thought:

1. An overview of the demographic history of college basketball and fans (Sports Business Daily, n.d.; NCAS)
2. A discussion of the different meanings of being white and black
3. Categorizing the “characteristics of interactions and the settings in which they occur as being especially likely to hinder or facilitate overt expressions of prejudice” (McDermott, 2006)
4. Discuss “two themes of daily life… that are intertwined with racial beliefs” (McDermott, 2006)
   1. Family (June, 1991): What are the common themes present in black/white athletes’ connection to family?
   2. Athleticism (Denham, Billings, & Halone, 2010): What are the common themes present in black/white athletes’ connection to athleticism?

My new thesis question is:

Do descriptions/characterizations of athletes differ by race?

For this paper, I will look only at descriptions of the athlete.  I will review tweets, news articles, and comments that discuss:

1. physical index = height and weight (includes physical appearance)
2. background = hometown and previous school
3. academics = major and GPA or other mentions of academics
4. family = any mention of family
5. skills = shooting, ball handling, defense, moves, etc.

Conclusion

The new plan is to extend beyond an examination of athletes’ own descriptions of self.  I will now focus on fans’ descriptions of athletes.  Previous research (Denham, Billings, & Halone, 2010) has focused on mass media descriptions of athletes.  I will also focus on the institutions’ descriptions of athletes.  The two new foci of my research are essential to understanding the construction of athletes’ identities.  Athletes’ descriptions of self appear regularly during interviews with the media.  Less frequently are fans’ and institutions’ descriptions studied.  Therefore, I will adjust my research to examine areas in need of further study.

Bibliography