Superfan 2.0

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Leaning towards calling my research project “Superfan 2.0”.

A superfan is someone who falls under the prosumer definition. They catch games, collect merchandise and follow the game religiously. They have a solid understanding of the game and are on top of the latest news and information. But with new technology, fans have evolved and now play a more active role within the game. These fans create content related to the game and work within a network to develop information and knowledge. The 2.0 part of it refers to O’Reilly’s definition of web 2.0 and the technology fans have used to create, maintain and share information.

Think the term Superfan 2.0 suits them just right.

Hockey Prosumer vs Hockey Produser

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Source: Wikimedia Commons

Since my research is looking at how hockey fans are produsers (Bruns, 2008), I think it’s important to compare produsage to prosumerism. Both sound similar, but are very different.

The vast majority of research that examines professional sports depict fans as consumers or prosumers. Consumers are those that consume. Prosumers, coined by Alvin Toffler in 1980,  are consumers that become active in designing and improving the products in the marketplace. Current research looks at consumption patterns of sports fans, but also how these fans are having an input on the products they consume.

Produsage, on the other hand, is “the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement” (Produsage, 2007, para.2). Produsers build on existing content to create new content. In this case, fans become unique producers unaffiliated with the main sources such as professional sports leagues and broadcast networks. Information is the content that my research examines, with blogs serving as the specific tool fans use to produse.

The availability of hockey games and related information is the result of hockey prosumers. Fans demand content be available on mobile phones and applications and the league responds.  In this case, fans don’t create anything new. They simply assist in enhancing the product.

Fans who blog on their own or in collaboration with other fans, serve as one example of produsers. They create their own content using what’s available to them, which in this case is the game of hockey. They create, maintain and share their information online and are unaffiliated with official producers. Sports fan produsage lacks research right now, and could provide insight into changing role of the hockey fan.

Bruns, A. (2009). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Produsage. (2007, December 31). Produsage: A working definition. Retrieved from http://produsage.org/node/9

Produsage. (2009, April 5). Beyond Toffler, beyond the prosumer. Retrieved from http://produsage.org/node/58

Prosumer. (2011, August 5). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 05:10, August 28, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosumer

Toffler, A. (1980). The Third Wave. USA: Bantam.

Toffler, A. (1990). Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century . USA: Bantam.

MACT Experience

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Source: PhD Comics

I’ve finished my last elective and am now ready to start the final project this fall. Researching my topic and finalizing the paper will take until early 2012.

There’s no question that a graduate program is extremely challenging mentally. There’s all sorts of information to soak in and apply leaving little time for anything else. For me personally, there has been a lot of frustration and stress chasing a master’s degree, but it’s been a rewarding experience.

Some advice for anyone looking into the MACT program or any other graduate studies:

1. Have a plan. Working full time and coming home to readings, assignments and groupwork takes a lot of time. Plan out your course work and stick to it.

2. Make time for your own stuff. You’ll have to sacrifice a lot so the challenge is figuring out what you can and can’t cut out.

3. Book a time slot in the week for catching up on stuff. Your studying time will get pushed around a lot, so be ready to make-up for it.

4. Use your cohort and faculty for support. It might be tough to explain to family and friends why you’re spending all that money on a graduate program, let alone what exactly you’re studying.

5. Choose a topic you genuinely want to research. You’ll be spending hours and hours studying it, so make it enjoyable. Motivation to read a 30+ page article can be difficult to find, so do something you have a real interest in.

It’s an exciting time to be a graduate student. Traditional methods of learning  are still around, but its worth exploring the new methods and tools available to students. I found that a lot of topics in communications and technology remain unchartered and students have the freedom to explore these areas further.

Categorizing Sports Blogs

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From what I’ve seen, sports blogs can be seperated into different categories.

1. The fan blog – Exactly what it sounds like, but with no affiliation with any major sports networks or sites.

2. The MSM blog – Blogs hosted by mainstream media networks such as TSN, Sportsnet, The Score or Edmonton Journal etc. Blog writers are employees of the major network.

3. Network Blogs – This is when fan blogs join a network of other blogs. This would include SB Nation, The Nation Network. Blogs that started small and grew to join a network of other blogs.

Infovegan

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InfoVegan.com

Came across an insightful blog via Twitter recently called Infovegan.com. Clay Johnson talks about overconsumption of information and makes parallels to overeating and obesity. I talked about information overload a while back, which ties in nicely with some of the pointers this site provides.

I think sports fans can appreciate this. There is a tonne of information available regarding teams, players, games, pre-gama analysis, post-game analysis, free agency, the draft, training camp, more game analysis, trade deadline, all-star selection, Olympics selection, Olympics analysis, more game analysis, rumors, speculation and commentary. And more game analysis. All of this is over different media such as television, radio, websites, blogs, podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, message boards and mobile applications.

I’ll admit to following all of this information using different mediums.

Some advice from the site:

Information consumption also has a consumption chain, just like food does. Most news, for instance, comes from a set of facts on the ground, that get processed, and processed and processed again before it ends up on your television set boiled down into chunks for you to consume. But it also gets filled with additives— expert opinion, analysis, visualizations, you name it— before it gets to you. If this was food, a vegan would want none of it, vegans would prefer only natural products like juices you can make yourself with juicers from the juicing daily site. They’d head straight to the data, to the source, to the facts, and try and get as much of that additive business out of their way.

Creativity

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Henry Jenkins interviewed David Gauntlett, author of Making is Connecting: The Social Meaning of Creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0. Full interview can be found here.

Regarding the importance of the internet to creativity:

Having easy access to people who share their passions means that individuals can be inspired by each other’s work and ideas – which can lead to a positive spiral of people doing better and better things and inspiring more and more activity by others. This could happen before the internet, in clubs and societies, but it would tend to be slower, and the inspiring inputs would most likely be fewer, and less diverse.

MACT Project Update

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I’ve used my third elective to work on my literature review, which will be used in my final MACT research project. You can find my application form here [PDF]. This includes my list of readings and assignments approved by the MACT program.

I started with an initial reading list, with the work of Henry Jenkins and Axel Bruns as foundational concepts. After assessing this initial list, I conducted a systematic search for literature to understand what has been done on my research topic.

In terms of sports fans and participatory culture, the initial readings I came across fell into three categories:

  1. Research that examined the consumption of sports by fans. This would look into what and how much they were consuming.
  2. Research that examined why sports fans behaved the way they did. This is where the psychology theories would be applied. Why do fans get aggressive? Why and how do they identify with teams and players? That kind of stuff.
  3. Research that examined how fans engage with sports. Video games, fantasy sports and activity on message boards are examples of fan engagement.

Based on these three categories, I think fan engagement is the one closely related to what I’m pursuing. Plus, not much has been done on it.

Then I did a systematic search of all the literature available to explore fan engagement even further. It will be these readings, along with Jenkins’ and Bruns’ work, that will make up the bulk of the final literature review due in August.

NHL Needs to Provide More Data

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It would be in the best interest of the NHL to begin generating and providing more advanced data for fans to work with.

The amount of hockey statistics has come a long way. Along with goals, assists, points and penalties, the league now provides even greater details, breaking down results by period, by division, arena, etc.

Fans have demonstrated a high demand of statistics which are used in debates with other fans, their own blogs/commentary, fantasy leagues and gambling. Some have even used statistics to create visual representation of the game. For example, TimeOnIce (ex. game number 30311) shows which players were playing with and against  to give fans an idea of who the coaches tried to match up.

To really stay relevant and remain a valuable source for information, the NHL needs to join the community of fans who use stats regularly for their own purposes. Two things need to be done:

1. Expand the amount of data being captured. For example, tracking player mistakes, similar to what the Cult of Hockey does, could be done. For an example of advanced hockey analytics, see BehindTheNet.

2. Make the data easy to work with and share. Provide the statistics, but also tutorials on what it is and how to use and share it. Anyone with basic computer skills should be able to learn some export and embedding functions to use the information on their blogs.

The object of these statistics should be to encourage fans to do something with it. Hockey fans are more than just consumers. Blogs and fan videos demonstrate the creativity of a community passionate about their sport. Sport fantasy social clubs show us that fans are involved and committed. Some even bet on sports! Look at this, CompareTheBets’ List of Promo Codes. From that, we can all deduce that lots of people do it!  It’s also imperative to reach out to new fans and teach them about the game. The best way learn is to be active and engaged with the material available.

If the NHL doesn’t provide the content fans need to create their own material, it won’t matter. Fans will find a way to get things done. The league can either be a part of the community’s movement towards active fandom or a spectator of creative content.

Social Media and the Vancouver Riot

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Source: Vancouver Sun

After losing to the Boston Bruins in game seven of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, people took to the streets of Vancouver and began a riot. Stories and photos can be found here:

Globe and Mail

Vancouver Sun

CBC News

Mashable

BBC News

While watching the CTV News live feed, as well as seeing images on Twitter and Google Realtime, I couldn’t help but notice how many people stood around the madness and took pictures with their smart phones. One can assume that these were used to share over social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) but also to send to friends who weren’t there.

Social media tools are higly personable. In an attempt to capture that personal experience of an event such as these post-game riots, people stood in the masses and risked their well being. To let people know that they were there, people slowed down police efforts and contributed to the escalation of violence and chaos.

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