Academic Research Skills, Produce a Dissertation Proposal in preparation for your dissertation.

Student Name (please print):

     Quadri Oladayo Atinuke

Degree Programme:

BA (Hons) Media, Culture and Communication (BMMCULCM / FT )

Agreed topic title

Please specify as precisely as possible in not more than 15 words:

Analyze the Differences between Official and Unofficial Social media accounts of Manchester United football club.

Outline of proposal

What is your research question?

What is it that you want to find out? Express this in the form of a question.

How does Manchester United manage its reputation on social media?

The role Fans played on social media regarding the rejection of the super league.

Impact of Manchester United fans on social media and their influence on the club.

Introduction

The advent of social media was meant to help individuals and institutions to aid their communications. Over the years, long-distance communication proved to be difficult hence human beings struggled to effectively communicate. The advancements that have been experienced in the various social media platforms have therefore proven effective in aiding the transmission of information and the acquisition of necessary feedback among various institutions and individuals. Several social media accounts have also emerged. Some of these accounts include Twitter, Instagram, and Tik Tok which have promoted communication among various institutions and their subordinates. For instance, Manchester United football club enjoys a robust following of almost forty million followers on Instagram. Most of these followers are the fans who are interested in knowing whatever activities the team has engaged in. These fans also follow the team on its Instagram page to ensure that they are up to date with the ongoings that their various favorite players have engaged in outside the football pitch.

On Twitter, Manchester United football club enjoys a robust following of twenty-five million. A larger percentage of these followers are their fans who follow them to gather any relevant news about their favorite players and their favorite coaches. Therefore, Manchester United has resorted to using its various social media platforms to enhance the relationship that has existed between them and their fans.

Critical Review (1000 words)

You should write a critical summary of existing research in your chosen area of study.

According to Parganas & Anagnostopoulos (2018), the various social media platforms have played a critical role in enhancing the interactions between the various sports marketers and their fans. Sports marketers have also used these particular platforms to promote the brand image of their various teams. For instance, in a study conducted by the authors on some of the most successful football clubs in Europe, they sampled close to 1115 Facebook posts of these teams together with close to 16, 308 tweets. Their main aim was to address the question of to what extent has the social media platforms helped these particular teams to promote and make necessary advancements to their brand.

The authors captured the various posts and tweets of these teams when they were in both the offseason and in-season sessions of their clubs. They also took into consideration the various levels of fan engagement between these teams and their loyal supporters. They realized that the football teams tend to use these social media platforms mostly during in season. This is because the fans of these teams tend to follow so many happenings in the football world during these particular times. Teams such as Manchester United have heavily invested in the management of their social media platforms with the aim of achieving the necessary fan satisfaction. Manchester United has also invested heavily in the proper management of these social media platforms since it is normally used for promoting product-related content which has been proved to attract more social media engagement.

The team also uses these social media platforms to provide relevant developments on the team to their fans. These social media accounts are also categorized as either official or unofficial accounts. For instance, Twitter is regarded as an official social media account where institutions and teams normally use this particular platform to post important matters that cannot be posted on other social media accounts such as Instagram. Instagram is regarded as an unofficial account because it is used by the team to update their fans on the various photos that were taken during a previous game or the videos that are regarded as the highlights of the game

According to Su et al (2020), well-established European football clubs such as Manchester United have intensified the use of these social media platforms to enhance the athletic brand of their players. This intensification of social media use has been castigated by the current trends in sports marketing that have portrayed an athlete brand as one of their most valuable assets. While enhancing the athletic brand of their players, the authors have also observed that the team uses these social media platforms to manage their reputation as well as those of their players. For instance, the club has set a website that can be accessed and its content read in seven different languages. This particular development has addressed the question of whether the club is only a European brand or a global brand.

The club has also devised the mechanism of following fewer social media users in its Twitter accounts to help them protect their reputation from the various instances of negative media. According to Aichner (2019), the various social media platforms such as Facebook and twitter are prioritized by the various European clubs such as Manchester United because of their official nature. Any post made on a Twitter account will be taken more seriously than a tweet that is done on an Instagram account. The majority of teams resort to the various Instagram accounts to update the various photos and short videos of their teams.

Twitter has also helped Manchester United in enhancing its reputation since the team can use a hashtag to talk to their fans on the various happenings in the club. These hashtags can also be used in addressing any form of defamation or slander on the team. Recently, several talks on the creation of a super league emerged and Manchester United was one of the teams that had expressed its interest. However, the majority of the fans of these European teams were against the creation of the super league. The fans established several hashtags on Twitter accounts threatening to boycott the various attempts by these teams to join the super league. The fans also organized a YouGov poll in which close to 80% of the fans who took part in the poll were against its creation. The fans also engaged in roadside protests which proved effective in stopping the breakaway plans by these various teams.

Methodology

HOW do you intend to answer your research question? What approach(es) will you take (e.g. textual analysis, media history, audience study, ethnographic approaches)? Justify your choice and use theoretical support.

Proposed Structure of Dissertation

e.g. a list of chapters with titles and 2/3 sentences explaining what you expect to examine in each chapter

Bibliography

For example include, as relevant, indicative reading; sources for empirical qualitative study; available textual material.