Search Results (116)

This research was designed to explore science-fiction and fantasy (SFF) posters, specifically those related to films and television shows, from the perspective of their owners, examining their potential as sources of social and cultural significance and meaning. The research explored these in terms of the content of the poster, placement, media texts they reference, morals, behavior, identity, sense of self, well-being and self-expression. Data collection took place between 2020 and 2022 via an online survey (N = 273) and follow-up semi-structured interviews (N = 28) with adult science-fiction and fantasy film and television show poster owners. The significance and meaning of SFF posters were framed by two conceptual models: ‘The Three Significances’—esthetics, functionality, and significance (both spatial and personal)—and ‘The Big Three’—content, design, and color. Among these, content held the greatest significance for owners. Posters served as tools for self-expression, reflecting their owners’ identities, affinities, and convictions, while also reinforcing their connection to the media they reference. Posters helped to reinforce a sense of self and fan identity and evoke emotional responses, and the space in which they were displayed helped shape their meaning and significance. The paper sets out some suggestions for future research in this important topic. Full article

Environmentally modified housing [EMH; windowless, insulated sidewalls and ceiling, thermostatically controlled ventilation fans) versus conventional housing [CVH; cross-ventilated, insulated ceiling, ceiling fans) improved broiler performance in the summer. The objective of this investigation was to determine whether social behaviors differed between two population densities (0.06 m²/chick [HD] or 0.07 m²/chick [LD]) in these houses. We used a randomized block statistical design, involving houses, population densities, observation times, and bird age. Behaviors were observed weekly, during the morning and the afternoon. Individual observers focused on the group of broilers in one of three defined 26.76 m² areas in each of the four pens in each house. Aggressive encounters, tail and back pecking, feather eating, thermoregulatory, preening, and flock mobility were recorded. Feather pecking, eating and aggressive encounters were expressed at greater rates in HD birds in CVH. A salt-deficient diet caused increased feather pecking and aggressive encounters, which decreased after correction of the mistake. Increased heat indices (HIs), HD, and greater light intensity in CVH influenced behaviors and mortality more severely than in EMH. In CVH and EMH, burrowing/thermoregulatory/resting activity increased with increasing HIs. Afternoon preening was elevated significantly in EMH. It was concluded that broilers reared in EMH were more comfortable and experienced improved welfare compared to those reared in CVH. Full article

The Harry Potter fandom community around the world prefers a universe of wizards and witches that includes all people, but also has concerns about the author’s perspective regarding gender identity. This disjunction paralyzes the cultural reader with moral confusion, which is a danger to their emotional investment in the text. Although scholars have analyzed this phenomenon using fragmented prisms, such as social media activism, cognitive engagement, translation, pedagogy, and fan creativity, there is no unifying model that can be used to understand why reading pleasure endures. This article aims to fill this gap by examining these strands of research in a divergent manner, adopting a convergent mixed-methods study approach. Based on neurocognitive (EEG) values, cross-cultural focus groups, social media analysis, and corpus linguistics, we outline the terrain of reader coping mechanisms. We identify separate fan fractions and examine the corresponding practices. The results are summarized by proposing a model called the MDRL (Moral dissonance repair loop) which is a theoretical model that shows how translation smoothing, pedagogical reframing and fan-based re-moralization interact with one another in creating a system that enables the reader to be collectively able to obtain their relations with the text back to a manageable point and continue being engaged. This model makes a theoretical contribution to new areas in the study of fans, moral psychology, and cognitive literature. Full article

This qualitative research explores the intersection of social media, personal branding, and perceived authenticity in sports figures, focusing on Deion Sanders’s digital presence as head football coach at the University of Colorado. Two interrelated studies examine how Sanders manages his authenticity on social media and how audiences perceive his authenticity. Study 1 employs a six-factor framework applied to eight focus groups to understand what factors social media audiences consider most important in developing Sanders’s perceived authenticity as a digital content creator. Study 2 utilizes a two-factor model of authenticity management to examine Sanders’s personal social media content during his inaugural season as CU’s head coach. The research incorporates a spatial perspective from sport sociology. This approach examines how Sanders’s social media activity creates and shapes virtual spaces where interaction and identity formation occur. Findings reveal that while Sanders is generally perceived as authentic, digital charisma emerged as the most significant factor in constructing his perceived authenticity. The study contributes to understanding the evolving nature of authenticity in digital spaces and the role of digital charisma in personal branding for public figures balancing multiple roles. Full article

This study aims to establish the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities undertaken by South Korean professional sports clubs on fan trust and loyalty. Furthermore, it examines the moderating influence of fan citizenship among these connections. Data were gathered via surveys administered to 348 spectators at matches of two professional sports clubs in South Korea that are noted for their active ESG activities. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and moderation analysis using Jamovi software (version 2.4.8) were employed to analyze the data and test the proposed hypotheses. The findings reveal that environmental and social activities significantly impact fan trust and loyalty, whereas governance activities positively influence fan trust but do not significantly impact fan loyalty. Moreover, fan trust directly impacts fan loyalty. Regarding the moderating effects, fan citizenship strengthens the relationship between ESG activities and fan loyalty but does not affect the relationship between ESG activities and fan trust. This study contributes to this research by incorporating fan citizenship as a moderating variable in exploring how ESG practices can increase fan loyalty through fan citizenship. Moreover, these findings enhance our theoretical understanding by explaining how ESG strategies are related to relationship-building processes in the sports business, and they provide practical suggestions for teams on promoting sustainability and fan engagement by focusing on specific ESG activities. Full article

Motorsports tourism has a significant impact on host communities, especially when they are small communities. This research aims to segment the resident population of a very small rural municipality, Obejo, before the celebration of the Sierra Morena Rally in the province of Cordoba, Spain. The study is based on the principles of social exchange theory (SET) and the triple bottom line (TBL). In addition, it follows calls from the existing academic literature to explore a fourth dimension of impact perception, related to inclusion from the point of view of gender, age, and functional diversity. exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and non-hierarchical cluster analysis were used on a sample of 281 residents. A structure of four dimensions of impact perception is obtained: economic, social, environmental, and inclusive. Together, they explain just over 80% of the total variance. Three population segments are defined: motor enthusiasts, environmentally conscious fans, and admitted critics. This study underlines the need to expand the TBL framework with an inclusive dimension in motorsports tourism, emphasizing gender equality, intergenerational participation and functional diversity to foster more sustainable and socially cohesive events in rural areas. Full article

As digital fandom communities expand and diversify, user engagement patterns increasingly shape the social and emotional fabric of online platforms. In the era of Industry 4.0, data-driven approaches are transforming how online communities understand and optimize user engagement. In this study, we examine how different forms of activity, specifically posting and commenting, characterize fandom engagement on Weverse, a global fan community platform. By applying a clustering approach to large-scale user data, we identify distinct subsets of heavy users, separating those who focus on creating posts (post-heavy users) from those who concentrate on leaving comments (comment-heavy users). A subsequent linguistic analysis using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool revealed that post-heavy users typically employ a structured, goal-oriented style with collective pronouns and formal tones, whereas comment-heavy users exhibit more spontaneous, emotionally rich expressions enhanced by personalized fandom-specific slang and extensive emoji use. Building on these findings, we propose design implications such as pinning community-driven content, offering contextual translations for fandom-specific slang, and introducing reaction matrices that address the unique needs of each group. Taken together, our results underscore the value of distinguishing multiple dimensions of engagement in digital fandoms, providing a foundation for more nuanced platform features that can enhance positive user experience, social cohesion, and sustained community growth. Full article

The benefits of participation in sport are widespread, and include not only improved health and wellness, but also support social participation and the realization of rights. Research on the use of assistive products in sport participation has previously focused largely on the use of specialized products in elite sport and has not addressed the importance of everyday assistive products for facilitating sport participation. This research aims to highlight the use of the 50 products on the World Health Organization’s Priority Assistive Product List for sport participation. We found that all 50 products are relevant to sport participation, and support participants to engage directly in sport, but also in social engagement with other sport participants, and as observers and fans of sport. Full article

This essay discusses the genesis, evolution, and impact of the Leningrad Contemporary Music Club (CMC), a pivotal hub for avant-garde and experimental music in the late Soviet Union. Founded amidst the socio-political constraints of the late 1970s, the CMC emerged as a sanctuary for jazz, classical avant-garde, and progressive rock enthusiasts. This paper chronicles the CMC’s unique ability to foster creative expression within the repressive Soviet cultural framework, driven by a coalition of visionaries including such musicians as Sergey Kuryokhin and jazz theoreticians like Efim Barban. The narrative highlights the club’s seminal role in introducing Western avant-garde music to Soviet audiences, hosting groundbreaking performances, and cultivating a vibrant community of musicians, critics, and fans. Through an exploration of the CMC’s organisational strategies, cultural exchanges, and its ultimate closure following state intervention, the paper examines how the Club bridged underground and mainstream music while navigating ideological constraints. The research underscores the CMC’s legacy as a microcosm of resistance and innovation, situating its contributions within broader discussions of Soviet countercultural movements and global avant-garde practices. This work contributes to the historiography of Soviet underground culture, shedding light on the interplay between art, politics, and social transformation in late 20th-century Leningrad. Full article

Blockchain technologies provide new opportunities for media copyright management. To provide an overview of the main initiatives in this blockchain application area, we have first reviewed the existing academic literature. The bibliometric analysis of the literature about copyright and blockchain in the Scopus database identifies four main areas of activity, namely “Digital Rights Management”, “Copyright Protection”, “Social Media”, and “Intellectual Property Rights”. However, it also shows that the literature is still scarce and immature in many aspects, which becomes more evident when comparing it to initiatives coming from the industry. Blockchain has been receiving significant inflows of venture capital and crowdfunding, which have boosted its progress in many fields, including its application to media management. Consequently, we have complemented the review with a business perspective. Existing reports about blockchain and media have been studied and consolidated into four prominent business use cases: “Copyright Management”, “Digital Content Scarcity”, “Marketing, Fan Engagement and Fundrising”, and “Disintermediated Distribution”. Moreover, each one has been illustrated through existing businesses already exploring them. Combining the academic and industry perspectives, this review helps researchers identify the current trends in academic research about media copyright management using blockchain technologies, but without losing track of the state of the art in the industry, which in many cases is more advanced, and the business use cases they can connect their research to. Full article

This article explores the emergence of the concept of glocalization in contemporary societies and more precisely, the glocalization of sport to highlight a social innovation borne through the interaction between global dynamics and local specificities in the development of sport. The glocalization, considered as a theorical framework to rethink local social innovation which answered to the limit of the globalization, is examined in this article through an in-depth bibliographic analysis conducted using the Lillocat metasearch engine (covering 354 articles since 1992 across 11 thematic areas, 29 of which are related to sports). The use of IRaMuTeQ software version 0.7 alpha2 (Interface for Multidimensional Text and Questionnaire Analysis) enabled comprehensive textual and lexical analyses, including frequency analyses, hierarchical classifications, and principal component analyses (PCA). These analyses were presented in the form of figures such as histograms, dendrograms, and word clouds, thereby facilitating the identification of lexical co-occurrence relationships and the understanding of emerging trends. Findings reveal that glocalization enables sports organizations to integrate global strategies with local cultural identities, fostering fan engagement, economic sustainability, and cultural diversity. Global events such as the FIFA World Cup, the NBA’s international expansion, and the Tour de France illustrate how global frameworks adapt to local contexts. Glocalization emerges as a strategic driver of social innovation, balancing internationalization with localized adaptation. This study provides insights for researchers and practitioners, considering glocalization as a theorical framework useful for the analysis of a local social innovation in the context of globalization and sport as a propitious field of research. Full article

Fuzzy semantics have a wide range of applications in life, and especially when expressing people’s evaluation information, it is more specific. As people increasingly prefer to express their personal opinions through media platforms, the opinions of the general public have become an indispensable reference. However, information asymmetry can have a significant impact on the rationality of decision-making. Based on the above considerations, this paper extends bidirectional projection to probabilistic linguistic term sets to preserve the completeness of information as much as possible. The large-scale group decision-making problem under the probabilistic linguistic environment is extended to limited interval values, and a new group decision-making method named IVBPRT-ELECTRE III algorithm (ELECTRE III based on bidirectional projection and regret theory under limited interval-valued probabilistic linguistic term set) is proposed. The method is an extended $\mathrm{E}\mathrm{L}\mathrm{E}\mathrm{C}\mathrm{T}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{E} \mathrm{I}\mathrm{I}\mathrm{I}$ method based on limited interval-valued probabilistic linguistic term set (l-IVPLTS) bidirectional projection by regret theory approach. Firstly, this involves mining the online text comment information on social media about an emergency and considering the effect of the number of fans, determining the attributes and their initial weights for judging the strengths and weaknesses of the emergency management alternative using the TF-IDF and the $\mathrm{W}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{r}\mathrm{d}2\mathrm{v}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{c}$ technology, and using the entropy value to adjust the initial weight of attributes, not only considering the real opinions of the public, but also combining with the views of experts, making the decision-making alternative selection more scientific and reasonable. Secondly, this paper fills the gap of bidirectional projection under l-IVPLTS environment; then, combining l-IVPLTS bidirectional projection and regret theory to determine the objective weights of experts, combines the differences in individual expertise of experts to obtain the comprehensive weights of experts, and uses the extended $\mathrm{E}\mathrm{L}\mathrm{E}\mathrm{C}\mathrm{T}\mathrm{R}\mathrm{E} \mathrm{I}\mathrm{I}\mathrm{I}$ method to rank the alternatives. Finally, the feasibility and validity of the provided method is verified through the Yanjiao explosion incident as a case. Full article

This study explored how fans’ perceptions of sponsor participation in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities influence attitudes toward the sponsor, sponsor image, electronic word of mouth (eWOM), and purchase intentions. Limited research has focused on the interactions between sports sponsorship and ESG activities. This study filled this research gap by considering the case of the Rakuten Monkeys, a professional baseball team in Taiwan, and its sponsors. Grounded in the theory of planned behavior, this study investigated how fans’ perceptions of sponsor participation in ESG initiatives affect their purchase intentions through sponsor attitudes, sponsor image, and eWOM. A total of 800 Rakuten Monkeys fans were recruited for this study, and the study hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that all investigated paths were significant. That is, fans’ perceptions of sponsor participation in ESG activities significantly enhance their attitudes toward the sponsor and sponsor image, which in turn positively influence their eWOM and purchase intentions. This study has theoretical and practical implications for enhancing brand image and consumer purchase intentions through ESG activities. The study contributes valuable insights that can be used by sports sponsors for developing marketing strategies. Full article

Social media platforms fostering a closer and more intimate bond between celebrities and their fan bases has opened up diverse avenues for product placement. In light of this, this study endeavors to explore the profound influence of parasocial interaction (PSI) and product placement on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement within the social media landscape. The results derived from an online experiment unveil the positive impact of parasocial interaction on consumers’ attitudes and purchase intention. Notably, the potency of PSI is enhanced when product placement is prominent. The results also uncover the crucial role of brand recall as a mediator in the relationship between parasocial interaction and endorsement outcomes. These findings shed light on the underlying mechanisms governing the influence of parasocial interaction and social media celebrity types in the realm of social media endorsement while also providing valuable insights into the moderating role of product placement. From a practical standpoint, the results underscore the critical importance of carefully selecting celebrity endorsers and strategically positioning products. Armed with this knowledge, marketers and advertisers can better explore the complex landscape of social media endorsement with greater efficacy and precision. Full article

Malaria prevention and control programs are mainly oriented to vector control, timely diagnosis and adequate treatment. Malaria transmission is influenced by several factors, including biological and social aspects. Thus, it is relevant to consider community beliefs and practices to ensure sustainable prevention and control strategies. This study aimed to determine knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) towards malaria in an endemic locality in northwestern Colombia. Preliminary data were collected through a focus group discussion. Subsequently, a KAP survey was administered to the community. KAP scores were associated with both sociodemographic characteristics and with previous malaria infection. Focus group data revealed knowledge gaps and the absence of or having worn-out nets. Survey results showed that participants recognized a mosquito bite as the transmission mode (72.09%), followed by dirty water (44.19%), high fever (86.05%) and headache (79.07%) as the main symptoms. Regarding attitudes, 44.19% of the people would go to the hospital in the case of having symptoms. The most recognized practices for disease prevention were the use of mosquito nets (65.12%) and fans (23.26%). The results showed that some people had misconceptions about the disease transmission mode. The analysis showed significant associations of either female gender and homemaker occupation with a good knowledge [OR = 3.74, (p = 0.04), OR = 3.55, (p = 0.04), respectively] or female with a positive attitude towards malaria control and prevention [OR = 4.80, (p = 0.04)]. These results showed that the identified gaps in KAP require increasing education among the community in addition to applying public health prevention efforts. The data may be useful in designing malaria control strategies that involve community participation. Full article