Department of Communication (CIS), General

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Browsing Department of Communication (CIS), General by Author "Armstrong, Cory L."

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    A Brand New Game: a Phenomenalogical Study of How Student-Athletes and Mentors are Managing Personal Branding
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2021) Adamson, Alyssa C; Armstrong, Cory L.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand how student-athletes are guided and mentored to develop and manage their personal brands within their respective athletic departments. With the introduction of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) legislation across the United States, this has emerged as a pressing topic within collegiate amateur athletics for both student-athletes and university and athletic department administrators. Nineteen total participants split between current and former student-athletes and current athletics mentors from a middle-tier NCAA Division I, were interviewed in a semi-structured interview process about their perceptions and experiences in student-athlete personal brand development and management. Interview responses were evaluated using separate research questions for current and former student-athletes and athletics mentors. Research questions for student-athletes focused on whether they perceived they had a brand and if they believed they had the tools to manage their brand. Research questions for mentors centered on what they perceived their role in the brand management process was. One major theme that presented itself was that student-athletes either did not perceive themselves as having a brand or did not feel like they were given the tools to successfully build their own brand. However, student-athletes did respond that athletic academic mentors did shape the way they networked with alumni and impacted the academic achievements they strove for demonstrating that there was a component of brand building on-going within the student-athlete phase of life. In contrast to what student-athletes reported, many athletic academic mentors responded that they perceived they had little to no role in helping build a student’s brand and most mentors believed other members of the athletic and academic community should be responsible for training. This juxtaposition in thinking between student-athletes and mentors emerged as the main point of emphasis in the results of this study.
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    Competitive sport in Web 2.0: consumer motivation, spectatorship experience, and the degreee of overlap between traditional sport and esport
    (University of Alabama Libraries, 2019) Hou, Jue; Billings, Andrew C.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
    In the 21st Century, eSport has gradually come into public sight as a new form of competitive spectator event. This type of modern competitive video gaming resembles the field of traditional sport in multiple ways, including players, leagues, tournaments and corporate sponsorship, etc. Nevertheless, academic discussion regarding the current treatment, benefit, and risk of eSport are still ongoing. This research project examined the status quo of the rising eSport field. Based on a detailed introduction of competitive video gaming history as well as an in-depth analysis of factors that constitute a sport, this study redefined eSport as a unique form of video game competition. From the theoretical perspective of uses and gratifications, this project focused on how eSport is similar to, or different from, traditional sports in terms of spectator motivations. The current study incorporated a number of previously validated-scales in sport literature and generated two surveys, and got 536 and 530 respondents respectively. This study then utilized the data and constructed the motivation scale for eSport spectatorship consumption (MSESC) through structural equation modeling. The current study then applied MSESC and compared the relationship between motivation and consumption under the context of eSport and traditional sport. Results of the current study indicated that communication between fans, the information-seeking need, and intentions to support the industry can positively predict eSport consumption while family-bonding and informational superiority were negatively associated with eSport consumption. Meanwhile, young male fans generally consume more eSport contents than others. Compare to traditional sport, eSport was superior in terms of fulfilling the need to witness professional techniques, to pass the time, and to get personal training. This study then discussed the application of uses and gratification approach in eSport, and suggested evaluation on eSport media coverage and experimentation on various motivation factors to advance the research on eSport consumption as this industry continues to grow.