MACT

Posts related to my time as a student in the Communications and Technology MA program at the University of Alberta.

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.

Knowledge Management

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Knowledge Management & Communication Technology
September 2010 – December 2010

Communities of practice

According to Wenger (2002):

Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.

Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

Tacit knowledge: Knowledge possessed by an individual that is difficult to transfer. Typically the ‘know-how’ a person has. It’s the knowledge we don’t recognize we have.

Explicit knowledge: Knowledge that can codified and easily shared.

“Continual dialogie between explicit and tacit knowledge…drives the creation of new ideas and concepts.” (Nonaka, 1994).

According to Nonaka (1994), there are four modes of knowledge conversions. Blogs play an important role in each of these steps.

Socialization (Tacit to Tacit)
Fans have the ability to communicate using blogs. Comment sections that are open to public postings allow for an exchange of the tacit knowledge held by fans.

Externalization (Tacit to Explicit)
Blogs allow fans to answer the questions of one another. Recording an individual’s tacit knowledge on a blog converts that knowledge to explicit. This can then be referenced later on when needed. Fans have also begun making their knowledge easier to find using tags and data mining software.

Internalization (Explicit to Tacit)
Since blogs are on the internet, explicit knowledge is readily available for conversion to tacit knowledge. Fans can read the knowledge available on blogs and internalize what they find. It is when fans utilize this knowledge, however, that they truly convert it to explicit knowledge. For example, a fan can take explicit knowledge and use it to gamble on hockey games.

Combination (Explicit to Explicit)
Various sites have begun making their data sharable with others. For example, fans grade player performance each game, use Microsoft excel to sort it and make it available for other fans to obtain and manipulate.

Nonaka, I. (1994). A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation. Organization Science, 5(1), p. 5 – 37.

Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and learning systems. Organization, 7(2), p. 225-246.

Real World vs Online Community

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Hockey fans definitely have an online community. But what exactly does it mean to be online? It used to conjure up ideas of being in a separate world, away from existence and in solitude from others. It was a distant place with its own rules and protocols. And of the few that ventured online, barely any would give away their real name or personal information. The real world was where we were physically, while the digital world was out there.

But with more people participating online and the advancement of communication technology, the two worlds, ‘real’ and online, are overlapping. Mobile technology keeps us connected from anywhere, making it harder to leave one and go to the other.

We remain connected online, even with no terminal to access it from. We don’t need to be sitting on a laptop or even a mobile device to be online. Our personal information, comments, contributions and ideas are other there in the digital realm being read, commented on and shared. We don’t just leave a mark on the internet. Our mark is active and in continuous flow even when we’re disconnected.

Having this overlap is beneficial for those who have ideas to share. These ideas are able to be magnified and extended to an audience. Because of social media and the ability to connect to anyone and their ideas/contribution, at anytime, there is a greater opportunity for the extension of these ideas. When like-minded individuals interact in this dynamic environment for ideas, a community is formed online. A major strength of these online communities is the fact that they are always connected regardless of time and space. The marks that are left by participants, whether or not they actually contribute, have the potential to be significant and are in an environment that allows ideas to be constantly exchanged.

Computer games

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The prospect of including video gaming is going to haunt me until I either accept it or find a really good argument to avoid it.

First off, I’m going to use “computer games” to describe both video games,online games and of course the latest updates with virtual games, you can also review services by professional gamers here. Video games would include Mario Bros for Nintendo or Solitaire on your desktop. Pretty static games, single port to play and not much interaction with other players directly. Online gaming would include online checkers, where you play with another friend or stranger online or World of Warcraft, where you engage with milli When I’m playing League of Legends – I frequently need see folks using running services in competitive servers. ons of other users. For the sake of this posting, I’m going to wrap up all games under one debatable umbrella.

Without a doubt, it’s a huge industry with millions of players online. A ton of money is spent developing and promoting these games. A lot of interesting work has been done researching computer games well. Studies have examined its impact on society, how it’s used by various age groups, how it can used in schools and what lead to its popularity.

Sports computer games are pretty amazing right now. The amount of visual detail is something, but the intelligence of the computer is off the charts. Each ensuing version gets better and better, enhancing game play and realism. For example, at the start of the playoffs, a simulation using EA Sports NHL 2010 correctly predicted that the Hawks would win it. A.I. is defined here as well:

“artificial intelligence…uses real-life data from each team, such as player ratings and line combinations, and includes variances such as injuries and hot streaks to predict a realistic outcome of each game and series”

Online games are a way for the fan to learn more about the game/sport, get into roles they may never be in (game 7 of the finals), and get entertained. Computers games can work as that conduit between fans to generate ideas and collaborate. Information gathered from the game can be used, knowledge generated and ideas shared.

My goal is to examine an online fan community, and their interaction primarily through weblogs. Computer gaming technology is a great way for fans to interact with one another and create/share information. But the barriers to get into computer games and use information still exists. Fans rely on EA to create the game, they buy the gaming console and pay subscription fees. Sport video games don’t allow for much tinkering with the code to alter the game. Aside from creating and trading players, fans don’t have as much freedom as those that are using weblogs when it comes to “produsing” (Bruns, 2008). This could very well change dramatically in the next few years, so I can’t completely forget about it either.

Online fan community and culture

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Just wrapping up a great course called Digital Tribes. The concept of cyber culture will probably sneak into the final project for good reason.

The one thing that stuck out most is the fact that culture plays an integral role in online behavior. A culture that is open to ideas, welcomes both participants and observers will probably be more successful. If you want to get people to contribute and share ideas and knowledge, you have to provide an environment that is open and ready. This culture is formed by the technology being used, the structure, including norms and values, and of course the people.

Perhaps this is why the Oilers online fan community has grown to be what it is today. People spread all over the world are talking about the Oilers, sharing ideas and generating knowledge regularly. One thing you will notice when surfing these blogs is the openness to comments. Some comments last a couple sentences, others go on for paragraphs. But both are accepted and reflected upon by the blogging community. The comments that are vulgar, or may be irrelevant are often ignored and eventually get phased out. The majority of the comments have some thought behind it and are typically responses to previous ideas.

Why sports as a project for the MACT program?

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It’s hard to ignore sports in Edmonton. Whether it’s hockey, baseball, football or basketball, there’s some history of it here in Edmonton. The majority of events, including soccer  and motorsports, at any level, can draw major crowds anytime.

The inspiration for this project is the amount of websites and fan generated information that have popped up in the past few years. Originally, if you wanted to get any hockey information, you would head to an established news outlet such as TSN or CBC.

Since the internet is now readily available to almost anyone, and the simplicity of the technological tools has increased, a lot of more people are getting involved in the development and maintenance of information. This links back to Clay Shirky’s work about group formation (EXT 503) and social media.

You can find a few blogs and websites of individuals who not only provide their commentary and opinions about hockey, but have also developed new and unique ways of tracking statistics. They’re great examples of individuals generating their own knowledge and information.