Death and bereavement are human experiences that new media helps facilitate alongside creating new social grief practices that occur online. This study investigated how people’s postings and tweets facilitated the communication of grief after pop music icon Michael Jackson died. Drawing on past grief research, religion, and new media studies, a thematic analysis of 1,046 messages was conducted on three mediated sites (Twitter, TMZ.com, and Facebook). Results suggested that social media served as grieving spaces for people to accept Jackson’s death rather than denying it or expressing anger over his passing. The findings also illustrate how interactive exchanges online helped recycle news and “resurrected” the life of Jackson. Additionally, as fans of deceased celebrities create and disseminate web-based memorials, new social media practices such as “Michael Mondays” synchronize tweets within everyday life rhythms and foster practices to hasten the grieving process.
This case study examines how fans can experience a major sporting event (cycling’s Tour of Italy) through a particular new communication technology platform—Twitter. To explore this possibility the authors tracked the “tweets” sent out by a selection of American and English-speaking riders during the 3-wk race. Their analysis of these texts revealed that Twitter served to increase immediacy between athletes and fans. This occurred as athletes provided commentary and opinions, fostered interactivity, and cultivated insider perspectives for fans. These activities position Twitter as a powerful communication technology that affords a more social vs. parasocial relationship between athletes and fans.
Via their social-media postings, student-athletes are increasingly creating public relations issues for college athletic programs. With social media’s emergence as a popular communication tool, exploring the messages student-athletes receive from their athletic departments about social-media use is warranted. This research examined social-media policies in student-athlete handbooks from 159 NCAA Division I schools. Using thematic and textual analytic procedures, analysis revealed that policies heavily emphasize content restrictions and external monitoring and frame social media as laden with risk. The results suggest that social-media policies should be more reflexive to identify both positive and negative outcomes for student-athletes. In addition, athletic departments must assertively monitor social-media trends to ensure that policies and training stay relevant.
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