Archive for category Academic

Reading exploration of sports and research degrees

Posted by Laura on Wednesday, 12 May, 2010

I’ve been busy going to the library to get books to find out about research degrees, being an international student, Australian sports and reading areas that I’ve been recommended to be more familiar with.  The following list includes some of the books I’ve been reading and browsing through:

  • The business of sport management / edited by John Beech and Simon Chadwick.  Checked this out today.  Goes into some of the topology of sports fans.  Mentions the AFL in a case study.  Still skimming the book.
  • The international student’s handbook : living and studying in Australia / Danny Ong.  Not useful for international research students who have a native language of English who come in mid-term.  Less useful in general for research students.  Separately, less useful for students who speak English.  (At the same time, written at a level that seems like it could be out of reach for non-English speakers.)   The book is mostly aimed at non-English speaking 18 to 19 year-olds who have never lived on their own before and are first time undergraduates.
  • Excellent dissertations! / Peter (something).   Did not find it useful.
  • The postgraduate research handbook: succeed with your MA, MPhil, ED and PhD / Gina Wisker.  Written for an American audience.  Focuses a lot on coursework underlying the research.  Timelines along that.  Not so helpful for an international student inside the Australian system.
  • Inside sports / edited by Jay Coakley and Peter Donnelly.  Skimmed a bit.  Did not seem particularly relevant to my interests.
  • Fanfare: spectator culture and Australian rules football / edited by Matthew Nicholson.  Slowly reading this for content and to learn about the fans and underlying behaviors, demographic patterns and allegiances.  This would be helpful as background knowledge to explain social media patterns.  Section on the cheer squads was interesting.
  • The research student’s guide to success / Pat Cryer.  Best of the books about this topic.  I’m reading parts mostly to understand parts of the process, figure out if there is anything I’m obviously missing and to get an idea for what the text should generally look like in terms of organization.  Helpful for that.  Mostly skimming when I’m not doing other things.

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May 12, 2010 Meeting Notes

Posted by Laura on Wednesday, 12 May, 2010

Research Question: What are the demographic, geographic and social characteristics of online AFL fandom and the implication of these for AFL clubs?


Tasks for May 19, 2010: Write a short research summary.  It should include the research question, how I came to be interested in the topic, methodology description and some of the topics covered.  Purpose is to make sure everyone understands what I’m doing and why.  This can almost be an introduction for the actual thesis.

Find out about the cheer teams for the AFL.  Do they have a web and social media presence?


Ongoing tasks: Check the media pages from The Australian to see what they have to say about social media and online activities in Australia.


Paper notes and tasks: Questions around how the review of literature should be done.  One idea suggested was to write the thesis as a series of almost independent papers and to publish them as I go through it.  When I’m done with all the various chapters, the citations can be synthesized in order to do a shorter, citation dense review of literature.

Cover bases for the literature review.  It needs a clear (a)cademic statement.  Possible structure for it could be:

  • What are fans?
  • How do fans show allegiance to a league?  To clubs?
  • What is the link between fans and social media?

The last part may be the most difficult as there is little available information about the topic.  This is both good and bad.

Discussion about the topology of online sports fandom.  Three types:

  • Undefined allegiance.
  • Formal membership.
  • Association.

Question of: Can the different types of fans be determined on social networks?

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May 5, 2010 Meeting Notes

Posted by Laura on Wednesday, 12 May, 2010

As I remember and have the time, I’m going to try to type up my notes from meeting with my supervisor(s) and post them to this blog.  (I’ll probably most more academic related content that is less specific to Australian sport and more specific to the academic process.  I’ll update the about page to reflect that.) This serves several purposes.  First, it keeps people at the University of Canberra who are following my research up to date.  Second, it might help those who are thinking about doing or just starting  an idea on a bit of the process involved in completing a research degree.  Third, it serves as a back up for my own notes and can help keep me a bit more on task.  When looking at my notes, realize that this is all a work in progress and nothing is set in stone: Processes and focus can change.

May 5, 2010 Meeting Notes

Research Question: What are the demographic, geographic and social characteristics of online AFL fandom and the implication of these for AFL clubs?


Tasks for May 12, 2010: What is the literature at the moment?  Be able to provide an overview of some of the current research being done on social media and sports.

Look at sports sociology books for the definition of fandom.  Familiarize myself with some Australian sports management books.  Look at Coakley and Wernerr.


Ongoing tasks: Check the media pages from The Australian to see what they have to say about social media and online activities in Australia.

Paper notes and tasks: Style will be APA.  Data copyright is mine.  Copyright of the dissertation will be looked into.

In the introduction, fandom and online will need to be defined, along with a potential rational for these.

Create a working dictionary for paper.  Include terms like fandom, online and other phrases that involve basic underlying assumptions for the dissertation.

Current operating definition of fandom: The community of people expressing interest in the AFL and its clubs.  This includes casual fans who belong in it for social reasons and die hard, super fans who attend every game, have club membership, belong to fan clubs and buy a lot of merchandise.

Current operating definition of online: Activity that takes place over the internet on the world wide web, usenet and possibly mediated by mobile devices.  Includes sites/tools like Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, bebo, LiveJournal and its clones, blogger, Yahoo!Groups, YouTube, bebo, online newspapers.  It does not include fantasy sports and gambling related sites.

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