Athletes vs. Coaches: Perspectives on Social Media

This dissertation’s purpose was to understand the different perceptions of social media in athletes and coaches. Previous research has not given a thorough examination of social media’s effects on coaches, or the consequences of social media for meaningful relations between coach and athlete. Previous literature suggests that not only do athletes not understand the influences or implications of social media, but also that these influences and implications could alter an athlete’s mentality for performance. Previous research also recognized that athletes’ preoccupation with social media is a perceived challenge for coaches. Goffman’s (1959) Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and Sissela Bok’s (1978) Lying functioned as significant theoretical frameworks within this dissertation which was also guided by an existential phenomenological orientation to embodied experience. Methods used included 1) semi-structured interviews with 10 high-performance competitive athletes, from individual sports; 2) content analysis of 13 post submissions by athletes with an athlete reflection; and 3) semi-structured interviews with 6 high-performance competitive coaches. A phenomenological analysis sequence was applied to the data sets, which consisted of parsing the responses to the interview questions into units or phrases of meaning, maintaining horizontalization, and creating a rich description that represented the meanings discerned from the data analysis. Imaginative Free Variation (IFV), guided by the lifeworld existentials of Body, Space, Time and Relation (bstr), was also a strategy used to deepen the examination of themes and summary descriptions. A manifest and latent analysis was utilized on the posts (“phase 2”) to describe the post while suggesting a plausible interpretation that the athlete’s reflection could be compared against. The posts were also used within the coach interviews in order to gain the coaches’ perspectives of the selected posts. The study aimed to bridge the gap in understanding the relation between coaches and athletes and how the effects that social media has on athletes and their performance. The findings suggest that athletes are aware that people are viewing them, and that they are having a difficult time regulating information that they see on social media or how they are using social media. The findings from the “phase 2” analysis suggest that athletes believe that they have insider meaning that the average viewer does not when viewing certain social media posts. These findings also suggest that the coach-athlete relationship runs the risk of becoming less effective, because there is less value given to interactions within the physical environment.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D. Applied Health Sciences

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Faculty of Applied Health Sciences

Department dc:contributor.department

Applied Health Sciences Program

Grantor

Brock University

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Gorrell, Elyse

• Social Media
• Self-Presentation
• Goffman
• Coach-Athlete Relationship
• Phenomenology

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10464/18290

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:brocku.scholaris.ca:10464/18290