This article explores social media analysis tools using the wealth of social media data of people’s interactions online for both academic and market researchers. This post comes from my PhD research on Netnography and Salford City FC and forms part of a recent contribution to our new book Digital Marketing: A Read more…
This research focuses on a new era for Salford City Football Club (SCFC). In the 2014/15 season, when SCFC were in the 8th tier of English football, they were taken over by ex-Manchester United players the Class of 92. The new era heralds an unusual case of a non-league football team having such high profile owners with reported ambitions to turn SCFC into a ‘digital football club’ (Conn, 2014). (more…)
I’ve been reading a number of papers about football brands, digital and social capital recently. A great study I hadn’t previously seen is called Football Supporters and Football Team Brands: A study in consumer brand loyalty (Richardson and O’Dwyer, 2003). This focuses on Irish football fan support for English football clubs. It’s a topic that I’m particularly interested in and in particular the role that digital media plays in maintaining relationships with fans who may be local, or in this case, further afield. (more…)
Class of 92 purchase Salford City FC, Guardian article
This article is about my PhD research study in progress, which is about Football, Digital Media and Salford FC. I am a lecturer in Digital Business at the University of Salford where I am part of the Centre for Digital Business in the Business School.
In March 2014, The Class of ‘92 purchased Salford City Football Club (SCFC) (Guardian 2014). This group are composed of ex-Manchester United players Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville and Phil Neville. Billionaire Peter Lim bought a 50% stake in the club in September 2014 (Conn 2014). (more…)
I recently started my PhD and I’ve been reading about different methodologies and philosophical stances. I’ve read several papers and books on the subject. From my understanding so far there are several ways in which to approach. First of all, a positivist study is aimed primarily at trying to prove a particular case using objective information. Meanwhile, an interpretive study looks for and carves out the meaning of particular phenomena using primarily qualitative information.
On the way home from a VW festival, my young daughter asked me what I was reading. I explained to her I was reading about how to do research and when she asked more about it, I tried to explain. (more…)