Examination of Social Media Communication Rules of Sports Federations with the Example of Turkish Athletics Federation
Project no. 23985 · Status: Kapanmış (Yayın bekleniyor) · 2022
Summary
<p>Purpose: The functioning and control of social media, which is an important part of digital organization communication strategies with rapidly developing technology today, affects the structures of the sports industry in a way that change them. Among the individuals and organizations most affected by this change are sports federations and the athletes and coaches working for these federations. The rapid development of social media has forced sports federations to create mechanisms for social media that are guide them in a way that would not threaten their corporate image. The most important of these mechanisms is to create rules for the social media posts of their athletes and coaches. Therefore, the purpose of the research is to examine the communication rules of sports federations regarding social media applications and present the conceptual framework of these rules by learning the perspectives of national athletes, coaches, and social media managers regarding the management of social media, and the social media communication rules implemented by their federations. Method: The research is conducted with a qualitative research method to examine the social media communication rules of national and international sports federations and to reveal the perspectives of coaches, national athletes, and the social media manager of the federation affiliated by the Turkish Athletics Federation. The ethnography design is used in the research. Documents, observations, and interviews conducted as data collection tools in the study. In the analysis of the data, after applying content analysis to the documents related to the social media communication rules of the national and international sports federations, total of seven people were interviewed to reveal the perspectives of two coaches, four national athletes, and the social media manager of the federation affiliated by the Turkish Athletics Federation on the subject, and content analysis was applied to the obtained data. Maxqda Pro 2020 program is used for data analysis in the research. Results: While it is seen that national sports federations tend to include social media communication rules mainly in disciplinary instructions, it has been seen that international sports federations publish social media communication rules such as VI code of conduct, code of ethics, education plans, integrity books, rule books, social media guidelines, brand and communication guide, which only include contents related to social media communication rules. When the social media communication rules of international sports federations are analyzed, it has been seen that 9 themes emerge, while 6 themes emerge in national sports federations. 4 themes emerged regarding the interviews conducted with coaches working under the Turkish Athletics Federation, national athletes, and the social media manager of the federation. It is determined that there are social media communication rules that coaches apply to themselves and their athletes, but the rules have not been written. While it is seen that national athletes also have their own social media communication rules, it is also found that the federation also has social media communication rules and imposes various sanctions on them. It has been determined that the federation's social media manager stated that there were no social media communication rules for athletes and coaches and that they would be difficult to implement. While coaches state that the federation should create instructions on social media communication, it is determined that national athletes have the perspective that they will comply with these rules if there are written social media communication rules created by the federation. Findings: Although there are inconsistent statements in the social media communication rules of international sports federations, it has revealed that they have a more developed structure in terms of social media communication rules compared to national sports federations. It has determined that the social media communication rules established by national-international sports federations are similar to the views of coaches, national athletes, and social media managers working under the Turkish Athletics Federation. It has been determined that the Turkish Athletics Federation does not have a written policy regarding social media communication rules, but a social media policy implements the federation's internal mechanisms.</p>