Critical Analysis Paper

Article

More Than a Game: Sports Media Framing Effects on Attitudes, Intentions, and Enjoyment

Nicky Lewis1 and Andrew J. Weaver1

Abstract Over the past several decades, media coverage of both professional and nonprofes- sional athletes has reached unprecedented levels. Previously unreported information about these individuals, including their behavior on and off the field, is now massively disseminated to the public for consumption. Although the extensive amount of media coverage often focuses on the athletes’ in-game performances, other information related to their individual characteristics and personal lives can be featured as well. Sports journalists can and do employ various frames that emphasize specific content in their stories; but the influence these frames have on subsequent audience evalua- tions pertaining to the athletes featured within them is unknown. This study will explore several important factors in the attitude formation process, including features of the media coverage itself, characteristics of the featured athletes, and characteristics of the processing audience. Implications for content producers in the media industry and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords sports, media, framing, attitudes, enjoyment

1 Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Nicky Lewis, Indiana University, Radio-TV Center, 1229 E. Seventh Street, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Communication & Sport 2015, Vol. 3(2) 219-242 ª The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/2167479513508273 com.sagepub.com

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Introduction

Presently, the popularity of professional and nonprofessional athletes has trans-

cended beyond the playing field and into the world of celebrity and popular culture.

Due to increasing media saturation, modern sports coverage of these athletes has

grown exponentially (Skolnick, 2008). Continuous content produced by television

networks, radio stations, and sports websites has resulted in the mass dissemination

of personal details about professional athletes’ lives both on and off the field. In an

age of constant media consumption, the actions of athletes are monitored not only by

sports media but also by media consumers as well.

Traditionally, sports journalists have relied heavily on game statistics as the foun-

dation for their stories. With the advent of social media, journalists and audiences

now have access to more information about athletes than ever before. Schultz and

Sheffer (2010) suggest that the evolution of sports journalism is moving to a hybrid

model that involves both traditional reporting styles and elements of social media.

This model includes aspects of sport, celebrity, and pop culture, and as a result, the

content of sports stories has shifted as well. Television programs like ESPN’s

Outside the Lines examine the critical issues of American sports, websites like Bill

Simmons’ Grantland.com are devoted to covering sports and pop culture, and

professional athletes use social media outlets like Twitter to share information about

their personal lives (Hambrick, Simmons, Greenhalgh, & Greenwell, 2010). Accord-

ingly, sports journalists are presented with more opportunities to craft their stories in

a way that utilizes different frames as information about athletes has become more

widely available.

In-game performances are still of interest to sportswriters and remain an impor-

tant component of their stories. However, a narrative focus on the athlete’s character

and personal attributes unrelated to in-game performance has also emerged as a pop-

ular frame. The aim of this study is to explore the impact these chosen frames will

have both on the resulting evaluations made about featured athletes and on the

overall enjoyment of these sports stories, with the goal of better understanding how

positive attitudes are formed. This, in turn, may influence how media producers

choose to emphasize and disseminate specific information about these individuals

in the media so as to maximize audience interest and enjoyment.

The Framing of Sports Messages

In recent years, both the ways in which media producers create stories and the values

under which they operate have been explored by scholars in a variety of domains,

including mass communication, journalism, and political science (Price, Tewksbury, &

Powers, 1997). One model that examines the effects these practices and values have on

media audiences is framing. Framing addresses the way in which elements in a cer-

tain news story are presented, and, in some studies, the influence such frames have

on audience perceptions of content. Accordingly, framing is concerned with the

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selection of specific content by media producers and the salience that content will

have for media consumers. Media framing research as a whole has employed

multiple approaches, with the majority of studies having a descriptive focus and

fewer attempts being made at identifying relationships through hypothesis testing

(Matthes, 2009).

Framing effects were first observed by Kahneman and Tversky (1979, 1984) in a

series of experiments. Their development of prospect theory demonstrated that while

making decisions under uncertainty, individuals are usually not rational decision

makers but use specific heuristics in the decision-making process. This influences

how individuals make decisions when similar information is presented in positive

or negative frames. They found that by presenting different scenarios containing

nearly identical information, the subsequent evaluations and judgments of that infor-

mation were affected. These early studies illustrated how frames direct attention

toward specific attributes of content and how responses to that content can be

affected by the framing choices of the content producer.

Although most media producers do not intentionally use specific frames over

others, they must nonetheless select a certain number of stories and relevant

features to report due to time and content restraints (McCombs, 2004). Indeed

framing is a necessary journalistic tool used to reduce the complexity of the

content (Gans, 1979). Media producers often have to identify the information to

be reported, thus making them responsible for the content the audience receives.

The producers, sportswriters, and editors of sports stories make the decisions that

determine how athletes are portrayed in the media, including what features of the

athlete will be represented and the narrative style the message will take. This, in

turn, could influence how recipients come to understand and evaluate the story

subjects (Price et al., 1997).

One example that reflects how stories can be framed differently is in the media

coverage of sports phenoms or athletes who become rapidly popular among media

audiences as their stories become prevalent in the media cycle. Tiger Woods, the

first biracial golfer to achieve major success, is a prime example of a sports phenom.

His speedy rise to popularity began after he turned pro in 1996 and won the 1997

Masters Tournament. His worldwide appeal resulted in endorsement contracts with

companies such as General Motors, Titleist, and Nike. Other sports phenoms such as

Tim Tebow, a National Football League (NFL) quarterback, and Jeremy Lin, an

NBA basketball player, have recently gained similar attention in their respective

sports. When a sports phenom gains extensive coverage in the news cycle, his or her

persona is comprised of more than just information related to their performance

alone. To be sure, it is often a spectacular in-game performance or series of in-

game performances that first bring the athlete to the public’s attention. But, as a

sports phenom begins to rise in popularity, more news stories are created about him

or her in general. As a result, audiences learn more about the individual’s

background and life outside of the game, including the athlete’s religious beliefs,

personal interests, and family life.

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As previously noted, sports journalism content increasingly consists of a contin-

uous overlap of sports coverage, entertainment, and celebrity. Stories about athletes

can be crafted in a variety of ways and feature information about those individuals in

different ways as well. It is beneficial to understand what effects these frames and

information have on subsequent evaluations made by media audiences, including

attitudes formed about the featured athletes, behavioral intentions to follow them

in the future, and overall enjoyment of the stories. In understanding what effects

these frames have on audiences, not only can sports journalists create more enjoy-

able content for consumers, but scholars can better comprehend framing effects

on attitudes, intentions, and enjoyment within the sports media domain.

Attitude Formation of Athletes

The definition of ‘‘attitude’’ has been a contested one, especially in the field of social

psychology. At the conceptual level, Greenwald and Nosek (2008) stated that atti-

tudes are hypothetical constructs that cannot be directly observed. However, others

have argued that attitudes can indeed be operationalized and measured. Eagly and

Chaiken (2007) defined attitudes as the evaluations of like or dislike of a specific

object to a specific degree. The object evaluation model (Fazio, 2007; Fazio, Chen,

McDonel, & Sherman, 1982) identified the relationship between evaluative judg-

ments and attitudes as they relate to memory, where attitudes are defined as

object-evaluation association links in memory and expressed as summary evalua-

tions. These summary evaluations may stem from beliefs, affect, and behavioral

information (Fazio, 2007; Zanna & Rempel, 1988). They may also be based on

appraisals of specific attributes that characterize the target object.

Another aspect of the object-evaluation model (Fazio, 2007; Fazio et al., 1982)

suggests that associations between a target object and a summary evaluation of that

object can vary in strength and accessibility in memory. Previous research on

impression formation provides some direction as to what underlies these evaluative

processes. Fiske, Neuberg, Beattie, and Milberg (1987) proposed that impression

formation occurs on a continuum between category-based and attribute-based

processes. Fazio (2007) argued that evaluative judgments about attitude objects,

or attitude formations should occur in the same way. People prefer to categorize

others when possible and often use categories related to social stereotypes, such

as occupation and group membership, rather than personality traits (Andersen &

Klatzky, 1987). After the initial categorizing process, additional attributes are then

considered to determine how well the target object fits into the category.

The existing literature suggests that individuals can develop associations between

a target individuals and traits associated with their behavior (e.g., Carlston & Skow-

ronski, 2005; Uleman, 1999; Wells, Skowronski, Crawford, Scherer, & Carlston,

2011). Furthermore, preexisting meaning structures, or schemas, affect how people

process and interpret media information (Raney, 2004; Scheufele, 1999). Schemas

serve as a network of associations between different aspects of a certain stimulus,

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influencing our perceptions, understanding, and interpretations. An individual’s

social norms should also affect the meaning of a sports media text for the consumer,

including how those featured in the story are categorized (Denham, 2004).

Individuals may not only employ different schemas when evaluating others, based

on categories first and traits second, but also social norms related to sports media

come into play—including aspects related to masculinity (for a review, see Denham,

2004), sports fanship (Eastman & Land, 1997; Gantz, Wang, Paul, & Potter, 2006),

and religion (Price, 2005).

To this point, consideration of the context in which sports media stories are

crafted is relevant as well. The social and professional practices of journalists influ-

ence the frames of the stories they create (Van Dijk, 1985). In the same way that

sports media producers can emphasize particular attributes of sports stories, includ-

ing specific personality characteristics related to featured athletes, audiences may

develop associations with those particular characteristics in order to form positive

summary evaluations of that individual. Once a positive attitude about the featured

athlete is developed, audiences are likely to have an interest in supporting that

athlete and following future performances.

As mentioned earlier, traditional sports journalism narratives focus on the perfor-

mance of the athlete (performance frame), whereas other stories place importance on

information about the athlete’s personal life (character frame). What is unknown is

the influence that certain types of story frames have on attitude formation processes

and the subsequent behavioral intentions to support the athletes featured within

them. When character-focused narratives emphasize the positive personality charac-

teristics of the athlete, audiences may categorize the individual as a ‘‘good person’’

first and positively associate the features of that category to the featured athlete. In

this case, successful in-game performances would be secondary to how the athletes

carry themselves in their daily lives. Considering that the featured individual

happens to be a successful athlete would be an additional attribute of this person’s

overall quality of character. This suggests that audiences would evaluate the athlete

based on information unrelated to athletic performance, information that would be

emphasized in a performance-focused frame. Instead, they would utilize positive

information associated with his or her character to make subsequent evaluations.

Alternatively, it is assumed that sports media stories are ultimately grounded in a

specific athlete or team performance. As a result, media audiences may not be

interested in the personal attributes that dominate the narrative of character frames.

When sports news stories are crafted using a performance-focused frame, the

featured athletes may be evaluated positively, because audiences categorize the indi-

vidual as an ‘‘athlete’’ and as a result, positively associate that individual with char-

acteristics of other successful athletes. Athletes are often skilled, dedicated to their

chosen sport, and physically fit. Furthermore, performance frames focus on a recent

success of the athlete, such as a high-scoring game or record-breaking performance.

If audiences perceive these category features in a favorable light, this may influence

the attitude formation processes about the featured athlete and result in behavioral

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intentions to support the athlete in the future. When considering how media

producers employ different frames in the production of sports stories and how media

audiences form attitudes about the athletes featured within them, the following

research question is posed:

Research Question 1: What effects do character-focused and performance-

focused frames have on attitudes and behavioral intentions to support the fea-

tured athlete in the future?

Beyond the attitudes formed about featured athletes and the expressed behavioral

intentions to follow these individuals in the future, another important component of

the audience evaluation process is that of overall enjoyment of the sports stories.

Disposition-based theories suggest that enjoyment is a function of an individual’s

affective disposition toward featured characters and the narrative outcomes associ-

ated with them (Raney, 2004). Character liking is an important component to this

process. Disposition theories predict that enjoyment increases when well-liked

characters experience positive outcomes and decreases when they experience

negative outcomes. In this study, each featured athlete, whether placed in a character

or performance frame, experiences a positive outcome. However, in performance-

focused stories, the on-court actions of the athlete are emphasized not positive attri-

butes related to the athlete’s character. Because character-focused stories emphasize

the positive personality characteristics associated with the athlete, this should

increase enjoyment. As a result, the following hypothesis is suggested:

Hypothesis 1: Character-focused stories will result in increased enjoyment as

compared to performance-focused stories.

In a sports media context, it is possible that individuals will categorize those

featured in the stories as an ‘‘athlete’’ first and then assess additional characteristics

later, especially when specific characteristics are more salient to the processing audi-

ence. Of this audience, sports fans may be one group where these additional features

are indeed more relevant to information processing. Sports fans consider themselves

to be knowledgeable about and interested in sports; they also consume more sports–

related media content (Gantz & Wenner, 1995). These individuals may be more

likely to employ a sports–related schema when consuming sports media as compared

to nonfans and identify those featured in sports stories as ‘‘athletes’’ first, because

this categorization is easily accessible in memory. Once this categorization has been

readily made, they can then assess other attributes related to the athlete featured in

the story and may consider them to be more salient than other members of the

processing audience. However, it is unknown whether sports fanship of the process-

ing audience will interact with the framing choice of the story. Hence, the following

research question is proposed:

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Research Question 2: Does sports fanship moderate the framing effects on

attitudes, behavioral intentions, and enjoyment?

A variety of individual attributes related to the featured athletes themselves could

also have an effect on attitudes, intentions, and enjoyment. One factor worthy of

exploration is that of religion, which has been demonstrated to have strong ties to

sport (Price, 2005). To this point, religion has emerged as a possible predictor of

an individual athlete’s overall popularity. Professional athletes are often seen point-

ing their hands to the sky after reaching safely on a base hit or making a touchdown

reception. In post–game interviews and award ceremonies, athletes often give praise

to both God and family for their support. Recently, NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, a

devout Christian, was highly recognized in the media for his devotion to the church.

As a result of his first-round draft selection to the Denver Broncos, Tebow sold more

jerseys during the draft weekend than any other player and has logged the most

jersey orders since 2006 (Matuszewski, 2010). It is likely those buying the jerseys

consisted of both Denver Broncos fans and individuals who had no allegiance to the

Broncos but supported Tebow’s religious beliefs.

In assessing how religion influences audience evaluations, previous research on

college students’ perceptions of religious and spiritual people has demonstrated that

college students perceive spiritual people in a positive light (Cook, Borman, Moore, &

Kunkel, 2000). It is possible that these perceptions could influence the attitudes,

expressed behavioral intentions, and enjoyment of stories featuring individuals who

are religious and spiritual in nature. The relationship between an athlete’s expressed

religion and audience evaluations has been examined using the schema-triggered

affect model in disposition formation (Kinnally, Tuzunkan, Raney, Fitzgerald, &

Smith, 2013). In this study, the authors found more audience liking for both the athlete

and the news article when the athlete’s religion was reported. Considering these find-

ings, it is likely that stories featuring an athlete’s religious affiliation will have result-

ing positive effects on evaluations of the featured athlete, behavioral intentions to

support the athlete in the future, and overall enjoyment of the stories. As a result, the

following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 2: News stories that mention the religious affiliation of the athlete

will result in more positive attitude formations of that athlete, increased inten-

tions to support that athlete in the future, and more enjoyment of the stories as

compared to stories that do not mention the religious affiliation of the athlete.

Method

Participants

Undergraduate participants (N ¼ 74) were recruited from classes at a large Midwes- tern university to participate in this study in exchange for extra credit. The age of the

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participants ranged from 17 to 32, with 39 females and 35 males (M ¼ 19.92, standard deviation [SD] ¼ 2.18). Participants reported consuming sports media an average of 1.67 hours a week. Regarding actual sports participation, 97% of the sample had played organized sports at some point in their lives.

Design and Procedure

This experiment utilized a 2 (story frame: performance, character) � 2 (athlete’s religion: present, absent) multiple message design in which story frame was within

subjects and athlete’s religion was between subjects. During recruitment, partici-

pants were told that this was a study on the media coverage of athletes and asked

to schedule a time to come to the Institute for Communication Research on campus.

Upon arrival, the participants were provided with an informed consent form.

Participants were then seated in front of a laptop computer where they filled out a

questionnaire regarding demographic, media use, and sports fanship. 1

Following the

initial questionnaire, they were then told they would be reading four online news

stories about highly touted and newly recruited high school basketball players.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two religion conditions and com-

pleted the study while seated at a computer in the lab. Each of the news stories were

presented as digital versions of print news stories from fictional newspapers located

outside of the geographic location where the study took place. Participants read each

story at their own pace, so as to duplicate a natural news reading environment. Each

participant was exposed to a total of four stories, two of which featured a character

frame and two of which featured a performance frame. Each story featured a differ-

ent athlete.

Following each news story, a modified version of the Affect Misattribution

Procedure (AMP; Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005) was administered in

order to assess immediate valence of the stimuli, which were still images of the ath-

letes presented in the story. Participants then completed a second questionnaire ask-

ing about their emotional reactions to the news stories and the athletes featured

within them. Items presented in blocks assessed how much they liked the athletes

described in the stories, how likely they would be to support that athlete in the future,

and how much they enjoyed the stories. They were then debriefed, thanked for their

participation, and dismissed.

Materials

Four news stories were created for participants to read in this study. Several charac-

teristics were retained in all manipulations of the stimuli. First, each story pertained

to a widely recruited and highly talented high school basketball player who recently

signed a letter of intent to play for a Division I university. Second, each news

story employed the same format and length, three paragraphs. Finally, each story

contained a headshot of the athlete. The four stories were manipulated to create four

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versions of each: performance frame/religious, performance frame/nonreligious,

character frame/religious, character frame/nonreligious (see Appendix for sample

stories).

Religious Affiliation. In the religious condition, information was included about the recruit’s devotion to his church and youth group. Statements such as ‘‘He serves

as a youth group leader and regularly volunteers at the church’s monthly food

drive,’’ or ‘‘He currently devotes his efforts at Mitchell Presbyterian Church, where

he organizes monthly field trips for local foster children’’ were made. In the nonre-

ligious condition, religious affiliation was not mentioned.

Story Frame. The narrative focus was largely manipulated by changing both the order and the detail of information presented in the story. In stories with a character focus,

the first two paragraphs emphasized a personal struggle the athlete had overcome,

such as losing his parents to cancer or losing his home in a house fire. Then, statistics

from the previous night’s performance were described briefly in the last paragraph.

In stories with a performance focus, the two paragraphs centered on performance

statistics from the previous night’s game, such as achieving a double-double or

scoring an extremely high number of points. The last paragraph briefly mentioned

a personal struggle the athlete had recently experienced. Although the order of pre-

sentation of information was manipulated, race of the athlete (Caucasian), the level

of performance (i.e., statistics), and the level and nature of personal struggle were

held constant across conditions.

Measures

Sports Fanship. Fanship was measured in the initial questionnaire using the Fanship scale (Reysen & Branscombe, 2010). The Fanship scale is used to measure general

degree of fanship and can be implemented using a variety of interests, including

music, film, and sports. Eleven items were answered on a 9-point scale of 1 (very

strongly disagree) to 9 (very strongly agree). Cronbach’s a was .89. Sample items included: ‘‘I have rescheduled my work to accommodate my interest in sports’’ and

‘‘I am emotionally connected to my interest in sports.’’ Responses to the 11 items

were averaged to create a sports fanship score. Two groups were then created (low

sports fans vs. high sports fans) based on a median split (Mdn ¼ 4.91). There was a significant difference between low sports fans (M ¼ 3.21, SD ¼ 1.06) and high sports fans (M ¼ 6.28, SD ¼ 0.88); t(72) ¼ –13.4, p < .001.

Likeability. After reading each story, participants were presented with items that addressed how much they liked the athlete. The Reysen Likability scale measures

the degree of likability for a target source (Reysen, 2005). Eleven items were

answered on a 7-point scale of 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly agree)

and were averaged and collapsed into a single rating. Cronbach’s a for all four

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athletes ranged from .87 to .91. Sample items included ‘‘I would like to be friends

with this person’’ and ‘‘This person is similar to me.’’

Behavioral Intent. A 3-item measure of behavioral intent was employed to gauge how much interest they had in the athlete and whether they planned to support him in the

future. Items were answered on a 4-point scale of 1 (very unlikely) to 4 (very likely),

and individual ratings were averaged across all 3 items. Cronbach’s a ranged from .75 to .88. These items included ‘‘How likely are you to support this athlete in the

future,’’ ‘‘How likely are you to stay informed of this athlete’s future perfor-

mances,’’ and ‘‘How likely are you to purchase apparel and/or memorabilia of this

athlete in the future?’’

Enjoyment. A 2-item measure of enjoyment (Weaver & Wilson, 2009) was answered on a 5-point scale of 0 (not at all) to 4 (very much). Individual ratings were

averaged and collapsed across the 2 items. Cronbach’s a ranged from .82 to .91 and contained the following items: ‘‘How much did you enjoy this story’’ and ‘‘How

entertaining was this story?’’

Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP). The MODE model of attitude-behavior processes (Fazio, 1990) is a dual process model demonstrating that attitudes can both

spontaneously and deliberately exert influence on information processing. This

model incorporates the motivation, resources, and time it takes to form an attitude.

As these factors will vary across contexts, it is assumed that automatic and con-

trolled components are involved. In operating under this assumption, both implicit

and explicit measures are beneficial to understanding the processes of attitude for-

mation. Subsequently, several implicit attitude measures that have gained recent

popularity in social psychological research, including priming procedures such as

the Implicit Association Test (IAT: Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) and the

Go/No-Go Association Task (GNAT: Nosek & Banaji, 2001).

For the purposes of this study, the AMP method for implicitly measuring attitudes

was employed (Payne et al., 2005). The AMP serves to measure whether an individ-

ual has formed a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward a target object, in this case

the featured athletes in the stories. The AMP suggests that the extent to which indi-

viduals misattribute reactions from a target attitude object onto an abstract character

reveals the bias the attitude object has on the neutral character. As a result, this

affective transfer suggests the projection of one’s evaluation of a target attitude

object onto an otherwise neutral source. In a sports media context, the AMP serves

to examine attitudes at the implicit level, in addition to explicit measures of self-

report, providing a greater understanding of the overall attitude formation process.

At the beginning of the task, participants were told that ambiguous Chinese char-

acters would appear on screen and that they would evaluate each item as ‘‘pleasant’’

or ‘‘unpleasant’’ as compared to the average Chinese pictograph. Each character was

preceded by either an image of the athlete featured in the story or a randomized

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control image of an individual not featured in the stories. Participants were

instructed to try not to let their like or dislike for the images shown to affect their

judgments of the subsequent characters. For each trial, the prime image (of either

the athlete or control) was presented in the middle of a computer screen for 75 ms

and then replaced by a blank screen for 125 ms. The ambiguous character was then

presented onscreen for 100 ms and followed by a pattern mask until participants

rated the character as ‘‘pleasant’’ or ‘‘unpleasant.’’ Participants completed 50 trials

for each story, where the athlete was presented 25 times and a randomized control

image was presented 25 times. One hundred unique Chinese characters were rando-

mized as targets paired with the primes.

In this study, all 74 participants completed the procedure. Thirty participants had

partial or missing data due to experimental software issues and were excluded from

the analysis. Of the remaining 44 participants, 8 reported knowing the meaning of at

least one of the Chinese characters presented in the task. Those cases were also elim-

inated. Total N for the AMP measure was 39. AMP performances were computed as

a proportion of the ‘‘pleasant’’ responses to the athlete prime.

Data analysis was completed using a mixed-design analysis of variance

(ANOVA), including one within subjects factor: story frame (character focus,

performance focus) and two between-subjects factors, condition (religious, nonreli-

gious) and sports fanship (high, low). Posthoc tests using paired-samples t-tests were

conducted to determine mean differences for significant interactions.

Results

Research Question 1 pertained to the effects that performance-focused and character-

focused frames had on attitudes and behavioral intentions to support the athlete in the

future. The analysis revealed that the framing of the story had no significant effect on

explicit liking of the athlete, F(1, 70) ¼ 1.76, not significant. However, there was a marginally significant main effect of frame on the implicit AMP measure, F(1, 35)

¼ 3.77, p ¼ .06, Zp2 ¼ .10, where participants made more ‘‘pleasant’’ evaluations for athletes featured in the character frames (M ¼ .56, SD¼ .15, 95% CI ¼ [.51, .62]) than athletes featured in performance frames (M ¼ .52, SD ¼ .16, 95% CI ¼ [0.48, 0.58]). There was also a significant main effect with greater behavioral intentions to support

the athlete in character frames (M ¼ 2.39, SD ¼ .73, 95% CI ¼ [2.21, 2.54]) as com- pared to performance frames (M ¼ 2.26, SD ¼ .72, 95% CI ¼ [2.10, 2.43]), F(1, 70) ¼ 4.07, p ¼ .047, Zp2 ¼ .55. Regarding Hypothesis 1, the character-focused stories were also enjoyed significantly more (M ¼ 2.77, SD ¼ .73, 95% CI ¼ [2.59, 2.93]) than performance-focused stories (M ¼ 2.36, SD ¼ .58, 95% CI ¼ [2.23, 2.50]), F(1, 70) ¼ 50.21, p < .001, Zp2 ¼ 0.42. Thus, H1 was supported.

Research Question 2 questioned whether sports fanship moderated any framing

effects and Hypothesis 2 proposed that news stories mentioning the religious affilia-

tion of the athlete would result in more positive attitude formations of that athlete,

increased intentions to support him or her in the future, and more enjoyment as

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compared to stories that did not mention the religious affiliation of the athlete. As

shown in Figure 1, there was a significant three-way interaction on behavioral inten-

tions between religious condition, story frame, and sports fanship, F(1, 70) ¼ 7.99, p ¼ .006, Zp2 ¼ .10, where for character frames, high sports fans intended to support athletes more in the religious condition (M ¼ 2.68, SD ¼ .85, 95% CI ¼ [2.39, 2.97]) than low sports fans (M ¼ 2.01, SD ¼ .84, 95% CI ¼ [1.68, 2.34]). As shown in Fig- ure 2, there was a marginally significant three-way interaction on enjoyment

between religious condition, story frame, and sports fanship, F(1, 70) ¼ 3.43,

Stories with a Character Frame

Stories with a Performance Frame

1.8

2

2.2

2.4

2.6

2.8

Religious Non-religious

Low Sports Fans

High Sports Fans

1.8

2

2.2

2.4

2.6

2.8

Religious Non-religious

Low Sports Fans

High Sports Fans

Figure 1. Interaction between religious condition, story frame, and sports fanship on behavioral intentions to support the athlete in the future.

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p ¼ .07, Zp2 ¼ .05, where for character frames, high sports fans enjoyed stories more in the religious condition (M ¼ 2.96, SD ¼ .83, 95% CI ¼ [2.65, 3.26]) than low sports fans (M ¼ 2.60, SD ¼ .74, 95% CI ¼ [2.25, 2.94]). These analyses demon- strate that sports fanship did moderate framing effects (Research Question 2) and

that Hypothesis 2 was partially supported.

Stories with a Character Frame

Stories with a Performance Frame

2.4

2.6

2.8

3

3.2

3.4

Religious Non-religious

Low Sports Fans

High Sports Fans

1.6

1.8

2

2.2

2.4

2.6

Religious Non-religious

Low Sports Fans High Sports Fans

Figure 2. Interaction between religious condition, story frame, and sports fanship on enjoyment.

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Discussion

This study aimed to investigate the framing effects of sports media news stories on

audience members’ resulting attitudes, behavioral intentions, and enjoyment. Three

relevant factors were examined in this process, narrative focus of the stories,

religious affiliation of the featured athletes, and dimensions of sports fanship among

the processing audience. Overall, character-focused narratives were evaluated more

positively than performance-focused narratives. Contrary to the traditional approach

of sports journalism, where stories are based on the statistics of in-game perfor-

mances, current trends in the field result in stories that emphasize the relationship

between sport, celebrity, and pop culture. This study provides evidence that media

audiences favor the latter. Individuals responded more positively to stories that

emphasized the character of the featured athlete, including personal attributes

unrelated to performance.

The results of this study also revealed differences in high and low sports fans’ eva-

luations of athletes, behavioral intentions to support them in the future, and enjoyment

of the stories as they relate to the narrative frames employed. In character-focused

frames, additional personal information about the athlete’s religious affiliation, unre-

lated to athletic performance, increased intentions to follow the athlete in the future

and enjoyment of the stories for high sports fans. Here, we see that information related

to who the featured athletes are, as compared to what they do, influenced subsequent

evaluations of the athletes and the stories. These findings speak to earlier discussion of

how schemas influence processing and interpretation of media messages and the influ-

ence of character liking in disposition-based theories (Raney, 2004; Scheufele, 1999).

In this study, mentioning the religious affiliation of the athlete in a character-framed

narrative generally resulted in more positive evaluations by high sports fans, relating

to previous research regarding religiosity and schema by Kinnally, Tuzunkan, Raney,

Fitzgerald, and Smith (2013).

The findings here also lend insight into the effects that frame consistent or incon-

sistent information can have on subsequent audience evaluations. Adding additional,

frame-consistent personality characteristics to a character-focused story, especially

attributes that are evaluated positively by media audiences, resulted in more positive

reactions to the story. Alternatively, adding personal attributes to a story focused on

performance resulted in frame inconsistency because the supplementary content was

not related to the story’s dominant frame. This suggests that the utilization of

specific content in narrative frames influences both audience reactions to content

and the resulting attitudes formed about individuals featured within the news stories.

These framing effects are further explained by considering the motivations of

high and low sports fans. Those high in sports fanship likely invoke different

schemas when processing sports-related content and consider sports media news

stories to be more personally relevant than nonfans. They are also likely to be more

motivated to form evaluative judgments about athletes featured within those stories.

As a result, high sports fans are likely to process sports-related content differently

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than low sports fans. In character-focused news stories that featured the religious

affiliation of the athlete, high sports fans both intended to support athletes in the future

more and enjoyed the stories more than low sports fans. This finding suggests that high

sports fans may be more motivated to evaluate athletes positively based on frame-

consistent personal attributes. Perhaps as high sports fans process positive personal

information about an athlete presented in character frames, more positive associations

are related in memory and stronger positive attitudes are formed about the athlete. It is

possible that for those low in sports fanship, personal attributes featured in the char-

acter frames are simply not salient enough to affect the resulting evaluative judgments

of a particular athlete. In the same way the high sports fans are motivated to process

and evaluate sports related content, low sports fans may lack the interest and

motivation to evaluate athletes based on the featured characteristics presented in

character-focused frames. Furthermore, it is also possible that low sports fans form

evaluations about featured athletes more quickly than high sports fans, because they

immediately perceive the athlete to be dissimilar to them. As a result, they do not ela-

borate further on additional information presented about the featured individual.

From an industry perspective, these findings are especially relevant to the media

producers who create sports media content. Character-framed narratives were

enjoyed more than performance-framed narratives, suggesting that media producers

should create content that emphasizes the personal attributes of athletes featured

within the stories. This aligns with the current shift of sports journalism coverage

that now focuses on the cultural aspect of sport. As described earlier, those high

in sports fanship evaluated featured athletes more positively when personal

attributes were emphasized in a character-focused frame. When media producers

create content specifically for a target audience of sports fans, emphasizing personal

attributes in a character-framed narrative could maximize both enjoyment of the

story and the intentions to support the athlete in the future. This in turn could lead

to increased consumption of media content related to the athlete.

Although there were no significant explicit likeability effects for the athletes fea-

tured in the stories, the implicit AMP measure did reveal a marginally significant

effect for character-focused stories being evaluated more positively than

performance-focused stories. This finding highlights the importance of using both

explicit and implicit measures in attitude formation research. Although individuals

may not verbally express their liking for a target individual, the underlying auto-

matic processes may indicate otherwise. Indeed, individuals high in motivation and

opportunity are likely to modify their verbal expressions of attitude to be different

from their automatically activated attitude, especially in socially sensitive contexts

(Olson & Fazio, 2009). More concretely, in conditions of low motivation, implicit

and explicit measures generally correspond, whereas in conditions of high motiva-

tion, a greater discrepancy between explicit and implicit measures often occurs. It is

this disparity between the high motivation of sports fans and the low motivation of

nonfans that may have resulted in the differences between the explicit and implicit

measures used.

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This study was limited by several factors. Loss of data decreased the overall

sample size and amount of participants allocated per cell in the ANOVA analyses.

However, this data loss was due to experimental software issues and not some

feature of the experimental condition or some personal characteristic of the parti-

cipants. Furthermore, this study employed a partially within-subjects design,

which requires fewer subjects than between-subjects designs. Most encouraging

is that significant results were still obtained despite this loss of data. In this partic-

ular study, we were unable to detect significant differences between participants

on the religiosity measure, an issue that could be rectified with a larger sample.

Furthermore, the modest convenience sample of college students may not yield

results that are indicative to a larger audience. However, the sample used here does

make up part of the target demographic (ages 18–34) of many sports media

producers.

Further investigation of other salient features, including those of gender and eth-

nicity, could provide greater clarity in understanding the framing effects of sports

media stories on attitude evaluations. Females are likely evaluated much differently

in the sports world than males. Indeed, several female athletes have gained extreme

popularity in recent years, such as tennis players Venus and Serena Williams, but

conceptions of these women are often gendered, racialized, and sexualized (Carring-

ton & McDonald, 2009). Understanding how attitudes are formed about female ath-

letes would likely reveal meaningful gender differences among sports media

audiences as well. Another interesting avenue of inquiry could involve examinations

of race within sport, especially how athletes are evaluated by others within their cho-

sen sport. Tiger Woods became extremely popular in golf, a sport dominated by

Caucasians. Conversely, LeBron James became a sports phenom in basketball,

where 83% of the players are men of color (Lapchick, 2011). These two athletes are likely evaluated differently by media audiences relative to the demographic makeup

and reputation of their respective sports.

As this study explores the effects of positive news stories, examination of negative

news reporting about athletes is another area ripe for research. The narrative focus and

emphasis on specific attributes of athletes in negative news stories are also likely to

influence evaluations made by media audiences, just as much if not more than we

found with the positive attributes in this experiment. Previous research on juror bias

may inform these explorations. Both negatively valenced factual evidence and emo-

tional pretrial publicity, which contained non-incriminating but negative emotion

inducing information, were found to bias juror judgment of defendants (Kramer,

Kerr, & Carroll, 1990). A continuance of several days between exposure to publicity

and trial proceedings reduced bias regarding the factual publicity but not the emotional

publicity. These findings suggest that emotional, nonfactual information about another

person holds longer resonance with individuals who are forming judgments about

them. In recent years, more information and details about athletes’ daily lives have

been regularly disseminated to the public, which is often emotional in nature. Expo-

sure to this emotional information may bias sports media audiences’ future evaluations

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of these athletes, including evaluations regarding negative news coverage about the

individual.

In conclusion, the way individuals are evaluated by media audiences is a complex

process that includes a variety of factors. However, the findings in this study reveal

that narrative frames involving emphasis on personal characteristics as opposed to

athletic performance do influence the subsequent attitudes formed about the featured

athletes, expressed behavioral intentions to support them in the future, and enjoy-

ment of sports media texts. This study lends greater insight into the effects of sports

news media frames while considering the moderating factors of characteristics

related to both the featured athletes and the processing audience. These findings can

inform both scholars and media producers as to the underlying processes involved

in audience members’ attitude formations of featured athletes, behavioral intentions

in supporting those athletes in the future, and enjoyment of stories in the sports

media domain.

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Appendix

Character Frame: Religious

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Character Frame: Nonreligious

Lewis and Weaver 237

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Performance Frame: Religious

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Performance Frame: Nonreligious

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-

ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of

this article.

Lewis and Weaver 239

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Note

1. Participants completed a measure of religiosity for this study as well. There was not

enough variance in the sample for it to be a meaningful individual difference variable in

the analyses (M ¼ 1.85, standard deviation ¼ 0.93).

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