Title: Set the agenda like Beckham: a professional sports league's use of YouTube to disseminate messages to its users

Authors: Matthew H. Zimmerman; Galen E. Clavio; Choong Hoon Lim

Addresses: Indiana University, Indiana University Sport Management, 1025 E. 7th Street, HPER 112, Bloomington, IN 47405-7109, USA. ' Indiana University, Indiana University Sport Management, 1025 E. 7th Street, HPER 112, Bloomington, IN 47405-7109, USA. ' Indiana University, Indiana University Sport Management, 1025 E. 7th Street, HPER 112, Bloomington, IN 47405-7109, USA

Abstract: The popularity of the video aggregation website YouTube has led some sporting organisations to establish a presence on the site. These can come in the form of channels, web pages that host all of a user's video clips. Other YouTube users can subscribe to these channels, meaning a channel's updates appear on a user's YouTube home page. Among the entities utilising this inexpensive way of disseminating video messages is 16-year-old professional soccer league Major League Soccer (MLS). Researchers examined whether a sport organisation (i.e., MLS) can use such a website to practice agenda-setting through the posting of certain kinds of videos. Results showed that agenda-setting is being accomplished on a small scale, but can potentially be accomplished on a larger scale by using YouTube as if it were a traditional mass medium.

Keywords: YouTube; videos; video-sharing; internet; world wide web; Major League Soccer; MLS; professional football; USA; United States; agenda-setting; online videos; David Beckham; footballers; sports leagues; message dissemination; video aggregation; websites; sporting organisations; web presence; video channels; web pages; video clips; mass medium; sport management; sport marketing; emerging technologies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSMM.2011.044789

International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 2011 Vol.10 No.3/4, pp.180 - 195

Received: 12 Feb 2011
Accepted: 22 Jun 2011
Published online: 21 Feb 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article