Bowman, N. D., Crawford, M., & Walters, D. J. (2011, November). Washed out of the Sun Belt: The fall (and rise?) of intercollegiate sports at post-Katrina University of New Orleans. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Communication Association, New Orleans.

Nicholas David Bowman, WVUNicholas David Bowman, WVU

Matthew Crawford, ASUMatthew Crawford, ASU

DJ Walters, WVUDJ Walters, WVU

So, who chose DII?: Mediated voicesvoices in UNO Athletics

Overview

• UNO and the Sun Belt

• Hurricane Katrina and UNO Athletics

• Searching for Voice via Content Analysis

• [preliminary] results

• [preliminary] conclusions

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UNO and the Sun Belt

• Founding member of conference (1976)

• Infamous “slowdown game” (22-20) led to the NCAA institution of the 45-second shot clock

• Left in 1980 over fight over Superdome usage

• 1983 WNIT; 1984 CWS; 1991 Women’s Final Four Host*

• Conference Champs: 9x MBB, 1x WBB, 7x Baseball, 1x XC, 2x Volleyball

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Katrina and UNO Athletics

• August 29, 2005: UNO main campus hit by Hurricane Katrina

• December 2005: UNO main campus reopens at 66% student capacity

• November 11, 2009: UNO announces it plans to move to Division III “in the near future”

• December 11, 2009: LSU Board of Supervisors authorized UNO to withdrawal from the Sun Belt Conference & pursue D-III

• January 20, 2010: UNO officially announces its plan to drop out of the Sun Belt Conference, effective July 1

• June 21, 2011: UNO joins the Gulf South Conference (D-II), adding football in 2015

• July 12, 2011: UNO leaves LSU system for UL system11/10/11 (c) ND Bowman, 2011 4

Katrina and UNO Athletics

• What voice(s) voice(s) was/were represented during the public discourse involving UNO’s drop?

• How were these voicesvoices framed by the media?

• How did these voicesvoices influence The Decision?

• How important was this (really) to NOLA?11/10/11 (c) ND Bowman, 2011 5

??????

Voice via Content Analysis

• N = 45 newspapers (over 80+ in LexisNexis – analysis in progress)(over 80+ in LexisNexis – analysis in progress)

– 12 nola.com (Times-Picaynue; 27%), 7 AP (16%)

– 17 “NOLA” stories (38%), 21 “National” (47%)

– 16 news (36%), 27 features (60%), 2 opinion (4%)

– By year:• 2005 – 4

• 2006 – 3

• 2007 – 3

• 2008 – 1

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• 2009 – 7• 2010 – 15• 2011 - 12

Over-Represented!Over-Represented!

*Purple is significantly greater (one-sample Binomial test or Chi-square)

Voice via Content Analysis

• Two undergraduate coders (1 male, 1 female)

• Coded stories for (Krippendorf’s α)– Article style (news, features, opinion, α = .729)

– Dominant voicevoice (from 15 different options , α = .818)

– Katrina as focus (focus, background, no mention , α = .802)

– Exemplars (general trend vs. specific story , α = .954)

– Valence (negative, positive neutral , α = .700)

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Results

• Source Descriptives – Most dominant voices

• Administrators (60%)– UNO sports administrators /staff (20%, n = 13)

– UNO administrators (22%, n = 11)

– Athletic conference administrators (13%, n = 6)

• Students (9%)

• One source from NOLA residents

• No non-athletic staff (i.e. faculty)

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*Purple is significantly greater (one-sample Binomial test or Chi-square)

Results

• Content descriptors– Katrina was either back-story (54%, n = 24) or

absent (40%, n = 18), rarely the focus

– Even distribution of specifics (60%, n = 27) and general stories (40%, n = 18)

– Even distribution of article “tone”• n = 15 negative, n = 17 neutral, n = 13 positive

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Results

• NOLA vs. NATIONAL– National media over-represented news stories, local

media over-represented features; χ2(2) = 5.45, p = .065

– UNO and NCAA/Conference officials most prevalent in both; no student or faculty voice, one resident voice (NOLA)

– Katrina (back) focus more prevalent in National media; χ2(2) = 7.49, p = .024

– No sig. differences in exemplars or valence

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*Purple is significantly greater (one-sample Binomial test or Chi-square)

Conclusions

• A focus on features and “human element”…

• …but rarely featuring student/community voices

• Stories tended to feature the views of administrators and coaches, but not athletes or fans

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<<??

Conclusions

• As a function of NOLA vs. NATIONAL: – Stories framed as news nationally, features

locally…

– …but in both cases, the (mediated) discourse came from those in charge and neglected those affected

– National media focused more on Katrina as a way to connect the story to all of us…

– …but told more ‘executive stories’ than personal ones

• Much of this could have been a function of “Katrina fatigue” (Feeney, 2007) and a shift to straight “Sgt. Friday” copy

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Conclusions

• Future research should: – Locate and code the other 40+ stories

• Careful attention to year of publication

• Student media and other media (i.e. television)

– Refine and develop coding scheme• More sophisticated frames

– Frequency of VoiceVoice + Content of VoiceVoice + [more?]

• Theoretically-derived frames (MIME; Tamborini 2011)

– Ask: “Did community voicevoice itself in other ways?” • social media, blogs, story comments, etc.

– Compare “mediated” voicesvoices with “actual” voicesvoices in terms of their impact on the final decision

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Thank you!

• In progress research, so for information:

Nicholas David Bowman, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Communication Studies

West Virginia University

Nicholas.Bowman@mail.wvu.edu

@bowmanspartan

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