Up to this point my group and I have been working to highlight the evolution of social media's impact on NBA athletes. Through my trailer I looked at how public opinion has shifted through the advent of social media in terms of how we idolize our athletes. I believe that our athletic icons have fallen in terms of fan based worship, not in the athletic arena, but more as everyday individuals to look up to. I think this directly correlates to the humanizing characteristics that social media has attributed to our athletes. Fans have begun to know and understand their former idols on a more personal level. The ability to put a personality with the athlete has diluted the grandiosity of the talent itself. Through further research I plan to compare and contrast the public perception of past athletes with those of modern athletes and how that relates to Twitter. I don't believe the athletes themselves have changed. I think the way in which we choose to relate to athletes is what has changed because of social media.
I like the direction that my group and I are going with our research on the uses and impact of social media in sports. I hope that as we continue to format our final project we will be able to develop a timeline that will depict social medias gradual influence on the NBA and how this affects the athletes. There are many areas that can be researched to evaluate social media influence within sports and it will be interesting to see how societies perceptions of athletes and the NBA have changed alongside those participating in the organizations.
For my final project I'd like to break down all the ways in which professional athletes use twitter as a tool for reaching fans, increasing their celebrity status, and especially the methods used to negotiate deals, trades, and other business agenda. My main focus will be towards the NBA, but with recent news I thought it would be relevant to address issues surrounding the NFL's pending lockout and negotiations. I found an article titled "NFL Players Take to Twitter in Vain to Fight Lockout." The article details the NFL's player’s union attempt to gain support through twitter. They used twitter as a way to set up a petition and gain support against team owners. The easy accessibility of twitter allowed many fans to proactively participate without having to put forth much effort. In my second article, "When Tweeting Athletes Turn into League Liabilities" there was more of an emphasis on the negative aspects that twitter has inflicted in the sports world. The article describes the relationship between twitter and athletes as an uncensored and over-looked media medium. Many players have been fined or suspended because of their tweets and some sports analyst believe that this is do to the fact that many athletes are less censored in their tweets in comparison to post game interviews or phone interviews; a product of twitters relative newness to the sports media world. I think it's interesting that twitter is shifting from an immediate update social media as to where your eating, what your doing, and etc., to a tool being used to generate interest and gain support for any particular issue.
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