iamcr presentation
TRANSCRIPT
Twitter and PEDs: Communication Strategies for Managing Player Transactions in Baseball
Allison R. Levin, MA, JD
www.socialnetworkadvisors.com
@arl1102
Early History
Media and team had a mutually beneficial relationship
Drugs are not new
Alcohol abuse
“Greenies”
Cocaine
Modern History
Steroid Crisis of 1990s
Needed to recover from strike
Chicks dig the long ball
Commissioner turned a blind-eye
Media punished by teams
The Difference
Payers, organizations and the media use Twitter to disseminate important information directly to the fans
The number of media outlets on Twitter puts pressure on reporters to be the first to report a story
Speculation is common and players often have to deny or admit where they could previously be silent
Baseball changed the rules!
2013 PED Crisis
First year MLB collective bargaining agreement allowed for suspensions
Whole situation arose out of media
20 players were suspended
18 got minimum 15 game suspension
Ryan Braun got a 100 game suspension
Alex Rodriguez got a 211 game suspension
Role of Social Media
In the weeks leading up to the suspensions over 40 different players were mentioned as being in the subpoenaed records
Teams were worried about maintaining support of fans
Legitimacy- a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions” (Suchman, 1995, p. 574).
athletic organizations try to draft and promote athletes that match the norms of the community in which they play
Players whose names were implicated were also worried about reputation
Fanaticism
Parasocial Relationships
Image Restoration
Benoit model
Used by PR professionals but not as accepted by celebrity and sport researchers
Many authors have found that celebrities in the era of social media have to do more
My current research suggests the stronger the parasocial relationship the more work that needs to be done
DenialSimple DenialShifting the Blame
Evading of ResponsibilityProvocationDefeasibilityAccidentGood Intentions
Reducing Offensiveness of EventBolsteringMinimizationDifferentiationTranscendenceAttack AccuserCompensation
Corrective ActionMortification
Ryan Braun
Caught in 2012 but was not suspended due to a technicality
Face of a blue-collar team
He and his team worked together
Admission
Corrective Action
Authenticity
!8 other athletes followed his lead to some extent
Now the norm for athletic transgressions where there is no doubt of guilt
Alex Rodriguez
Multiple time offender
Invested in clinic
He and Yankees did not work together
AROD
Threatened lawsuits
Attacked MLB, Players Association and his GM on Twitter
Still has not actually admitted guilt
Yankees
Focused on Identity and the Yankees way
Made it clear AROD did not fit the “mold”
Aftermath
Of the 19 players who were implicated and effectively used Twitter and other media outlets to show remorse
8 players will be represented in the All-Star Game
All have been accepted back to team and game
AROD
Yankees refused to pay bonuses for breaking hit and homerun milestones
Using sabermetric numbers he is one of the top 10 players in the AL
Not in all-star game
More debate about whether the PED crisis is different than the “steroid era”
Future Research
Building model to understand how team, players, media and organizations use Twitter and other social media
Influencers
Parasocial relationships
Identification
Understanding the crisis of presumption predicted by early social media scholars
What trends and why?
When to respond?
Understanding how, when and why fans use Twitter