Presentation Type
Research Study
Release Option
Event
Description
Ratrinayak and Winter (2018) said the “most important new gratification measures include socializing, virtual community and social interaction.” Social media satisfies all three of those measures by letting users follow accounts that are of interest and allowing them to have social interaction with others of the same interest to create community. This research explores college athletics departments’ social media accounts and how the posts satisfy their audience based on Uses & Gratifications Theory and Clavio’s (2013) finding that most tweets can be separated into interactivity, diversion, information sharing, content, promotional, and fanship categories. Tweets were gathered from 15 different athletics department Twitter accounts in an effort to answer two research questions: What types of content are most prevalent on college athletics social media accounts and what type(s) of content are satisfying audiences' needs based on the number of interactions? Results showed that tweets with video and photo were most prevalent and garner the most interaction from fans.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Faculty Mentor
Dr. Lauren Bayliss
Department of Primary Presenter's Major
Department of Communication Arts
Primary Presenter's Major(s)
Communication Arts
Location
Virtual Symposium
Symposium Year
2021
Connecting Beyond the Field: Uses and Gratifications Theory in College Athletics’ Social Media Accounts
Virtual Symposium
