May 5, 2010 Meeting Notes
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.