Community building in the digital age: Dynamics of online sports discussion

Marca Community is arguably one of the most popular online sports communities in Spain with over 400,000 members. In its forum, users can comment on the news published by the sport-based newspapers Marca while interacting with other members. Drawing on the existing literature on virtual communities,...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Lopez-Gonzalez, H. (Hibai)|||/items/8c9fb7b6-3876-4f71-a9f4-df2cd7e7caad, Guerrero-Solé, F. (Frederic)|||/items/75ecd926-b0fd-4332-a138-c503b3a6a52c, Larrea, O. (Olatz)|||/items/0b21327d-d4a3-453b-8521-f26f20cf76e1
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Navarra
Repositorio:Dadun. Depósito Académico Digital de la Universidad de Navarra
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:dadun.unav.edu:10171/37729
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10171/37729
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Materias Investigacion::Comunicación
Citizen journalism
Sport
Online discussion
Comments
Community
Marca
Periodismo participativo
Deporte
Conversación online
Comentarios
Comunidad
Descripción
Sumario:Marca Community is arguably one of the most popular online sports communities in Spain with over 400,000 members. In its forum, users can comment on the news published by the sport-based newspapers Marca while interacting with other members. Drawing on the existing literature on virtual communities, this study empirically examines the engagement in online discussion in order to determine the degree of “community building” promoted by the members. We propose a methodological approach taking under consideration the singularities of the sports fans and of the online conversation. A structural analysis focusing on the user interaction was conducted over the members (N=4,967) who posted comments in 8 selected articles. The findings suggest that Marca Community is a non-hierarchical liquid network wherein members participate in an equal footing.