Ozzie Sport

When you say that Helms’ writing level is lower, to what extent is it a reflection of the audience and of the purpose?

Getting up to the bit about Fast Moving Consumer Goods [Helms 2010]. His work is roughly contemporaneous to yours and uses some of the same methodology.

(Actually he focuses on the opposite. It will be good to see that his explanation/rationale for qualiatitive research is as strong as yours for the quantiative, and that they complement each other, for a future synthesis by other authors in the field).

Best wishes with the 40,000 words.

Social media is not simplistic by a long shot!

Is the World Cup bit going to be in chronological order?

And did you find a suitable geolocating verb? The nearest, in my experience, is probably “navigating” or “caching”.

Another strength of Helms is that he explains his primary and secondary source gathering process, especially where practioners are concerned. They are consulted in their own right, and not only in lieu of papers. His use of the specialist and of the news media is to be commended.

Helms shows that the network approach may be more successful than speculative contacts, particularly in seeking a high response rate. [Helms 2010: 15].

He has an expansive definition of social media! “Even under this expansive definition … Social networks have overtaken search engines in UK visits as of May 2010 … These sites are where people turn to find out more about culture and news … Facebook has supplanted Google as a driver to news sites”. (But when/at what point did Facebook become profitable?) [Helms 2010: 20]

I see he cites Putnam’s BOWLING ALONE, as well as the CLUETRAIN. Yes, social sharing does score you points and bring you equity!

Just over five times as many people [76% versus 15%] rely on other people’s opinions (whether in traditional or new social media) as rely on advertising. [Qualman cited in Helms 2010: 22].

Skipped over about three pages and looked at the Old Spice text and illustration. Now that is a breakout example of social media as used in marketing and shows the medium has come of age! Deodorant is of course a Fast Moving Grocery Product. How often it got repeated in the Gruen Transfer!

“Initial reactions are not always the right reactions” [as related to blogging in particular].

I do know vaguely where the “gorilla” came in. He was also part of a big campaign, mostly on TV.

Brand practioners hold a greater variety of opinions [Helms 45] than the agencies who may be more uniformly positive.

Illegal Jacks: would I retweet this company? [illustration on page 47].

“Anyone who claims to be an expert on social media is lying” [as the medium is so new]. I would say that you develop experience in your own niche, and Helms would appear to support that, as would some of the interviews.

5.4: Best Practice [Helms 2010: 54]: basically an expansion of the first chapter.

Interviews as appendix, as is usual in social studies and psychology. The first interview shows return on investment metrics.

“Sci-fi would never get reviewed properly 20 years ago” Callandine observes.

Appendix C has the Unilever man.

Appendix D: FMCG brands and social media.

Appendix F: What not to do! Yes, the Dr Pepper scandal was much talked about!

What I mean by simplistic is that it is not so jargon and math laden as to be incomprehensible to the average reader. That’s what I mean there.

Thank you for the clarification.

I can see how jargon and maths might be a “barrier to entry” – to coin a phrase.

Who is the average reader [of Helms]? Do they self-select, or do they find it somewhere?

More generally, who do you think is the “average reader” of a dissertation of this type and with this scope?

In the case of the Helms piece, the only readers that matter are the people who evaluated it and passed it. It makes me confident that mine will get passed. I just need to continue to tighten up the wording. I need to make sure that the conclusion follows the results and that the results match with the purpose states in the introduction. I need to make sure the formatting is right and the citations are done correctly and consistently. That the language may be accessible to a wider audience isn’t a bad thing. It doesn’t signify a lack of critical research on my part.

As for the average reader, I’m not certain… In my case, the word has to be accessible to sport industry people inside Australia. (And I know one or two people who have expressed interest in the final dissertation.)

The sports industry is a big pond, especially in Australia.

It includes everyone from players to umpires to marketers to fans.

“The people who evaluated it and passed it” are not many readers, but very influential ones.

The conclusion following the results (and Helms’ conclusion was not overly strong, on reflection: at least that’s not what I remember. I paid more attention to the literature review and the chapter after that) is important, as of course are the results matching the purpose. And if it doesn’t match, explaining that.

The formatting and citations are important to get right the first time.

I asked Google, “Who reads dissertations?” and the link below was one of the more interesting ones. It comes from “From dissertation to book”.

“A young scholar completes a PhD thesis and is congratulated by the supporting commitee…” [Germano]

Thinking again about Helms.

His “Best Practice” chapter may show what you mean by “making sure the results link with the conclusions and the purpose”.

Totally big pond. And I’m sure some bits will be extremely relevant to people in the AFL and the NRL, and sports/athletes with more of an international profile. Minor sports and sports with lower profiles are probably going to find it less relevant. Outside of the AFL and NRL, I only have one two chapters about other sports/athletes. One is Foursquare/Gowalla and the World Cup for soccer. The other is Anna Meares and her gold medal win at the track cycling world cup in Melbourne. I’m still extensively editing those chapters quite a bit..

My introduction isn’t as obvious as Helm’s. I don’t state what I’m going to do up front. Rather, it more clearly mirrors my dissertation. I summarize my literature review. I summarize the methodology section. I then spell out what I’m doing. (I’ve basically rewritten and condensed my PhD proposal.) What I’m doing gets summarized in one paragraph:

My research will help provide a methodological framework for doing a population study online, and demonstrate how the three components of sport fandom are inextricably linked and will enhance the understand how sport fandom behaves and what Australian sport fandom will look like in the future. This methodology will encompass populations across different networks and subgroups as most current research focuses on Twitter, Facebook and club fansites. The framing of this research in the context of events that taking place in sport fandom will create a narrative that not only will help understand existing characteristics of a fandom but begin to explain why shifts in the fan population take place. The approach will be useful in terms of laying a framework exploring the methodology for online target analysis, psychographics and predictive analysis as it pertains to demographic and geographic characteristics. This methodology will further validate quantitative analysis as a valid method for understanding how fan communities function.