Hibai López, Universitat Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona, Spain, 'Sports Chatter in the Digital Age' presented at 'Communities in the Digital Age' International Symposium, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK, 12 June 2013

1. Sports Chatter in the Digital Age:
The Marca Community in Spain
by Hibai López-González
Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona

2. What seems to be the problem?
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Online-
related
problems
Sports-
related
problems
Online sports
communities
Disengagement, liquid
networks (Bauman, 2000)
Derogatory language (Ruiz
et al, 2011)
Chatter, insubstantial
conversation (Eco, 1986)
Hostile
comments, partisanship, se
ctarianism (Boyle, 2012)

3.  In the 1980s in the UK, hooligans prevailed over any other fan in football terraces.
 The Heysel (1985) and Hillsborough (1989) disasters precipitated a turn in regulations.
 The Taylor Report (1990) prompted the beginning of a new spectacle:
— Commodified
— Global
— Family-friendly
— Media appealing
 Simultaneously, similar regulations were implemented in many countries. Consequently, hooligans were
gradually forced to abandon the stadium…
…and go where?
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
What seems to be the problem?
Sports-
related
problems

4.  The community evolves into a network of connections and disconnections (Bauman, 2000)
 New characters and new habits emerge with digital platforms:
— Unseen community: Lurkers (Nonnecke & Preece, 2005; Ridings et al, 2006; Li et al, 2008 )
— Flamers, trolls
— Flaneurs, tourist fans (Giulianotti, 2002)
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
What seems to be the problem?
Online-
related
problems

5. • We selected the Marca Community in Spain as our case study:
— Presumably the biggest online sports community in Spanish. Over 400,000 registered users.
— Marca is the most read newspaper in Spain (3,100,000 daily readers)
• We focused on the comments posted by Marca members (N=15,131) on 8 match reports during two
months.
• Marca provided us with all the comments, including those deleted by the platform due to rules of
participation infringement.
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Sports-
related
problems
Sample
Online
sports
community

6. AIM
 To examine the Community building (CB) in online sports discussion.
 Previous research:
— Knowledge Building (Marra et al, 2004; Zhu, 2006; Sing & Khine, 2006; Lee, 2012; Naranjo et al, 2012; Ng et al, 2012).
— Democracy Building (Xiang et al, 2008; Himelboim et al, 2009; Ruiz et al, 2010; Ruiz et al, 2011; Valenzuela et al, 2012)
METHOD
 We adopt the Structural Analysis perspective: User participation & User interaction analysis.
 Content Analysis is irrelevant: phatic communities.
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Sports-
related
problems
Aim and method
Online
sports
community

7. Some general facts:
• The 8 news articles had 324,492 readers. Only 1.53 percent of them also posted a comment
• 24.07 percent spammers
• 2.31 comments per user
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Sports-
related
problems
Results
Online
sports
community

8. How do users behave?
(Activity and comment deletion correlation r=.847, p<0.002)
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Sports-
related
problems
Results
Online
sports
community
63.82
16.51
7.27
3.36 1.91 1.57 1.17 0.62 0.62 0.52 3.14
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Rest (>10)
#ofusers
# of overall comments posted per user
(and above, % users in each group represent of overall users)
Distribution of users sorted by number of posted comments

9. How do users behave?
The Long Tail of participation
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Sports-
related
problems
Results
Online
sports
community
30.99
46.97
56.47
72.41
82.99
98.04 100
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1 2 3 4 5 6 12 24 48
cummulative%ofoverallcomments
Time elapsed since article publication (in hours)
Comment posting over 48 hours period

10. How do users interact?
28.51 percent of the user were interactive. 4.43 comments per interactive user:
— Incoming and outgoing interactivity were correlated (r=.748, p<0.000)
— (A) The probability of a core user responding to a non-core user (P(A)=.459)
— (B) The probability of a non-core user responding to a core user P(B)= .407)
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Sports-
related
problems
Results
Online
sports
community

11. 1) Huge invisible community. We only see the tip of the iceberg.
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Sports-
related
problems
Conclusions
Online
sports
community

12. 2) Not as liquid as we might expect
If we compare Marca users to users in other new sites, we find that in Marca there are less members who
only posted once (Pastor, 2010).
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Sports-
related
problems
Conclusions
Online
sports
community
93% 95%
72% 88%
63%

13. 3) A horizontal community:
— It is not hierarchically distributed
— No opinion leaders (see Twitter)
— Online facilitators (Himelboim et al, 2009)
that allow new users to join the network
Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Sports-
related
problems
Conclusions
Online
sports
community

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Sports chatter in the
digital age:
The Marca Community in
Spain
Sports-
related
problems
References