Sports and Leisure - Write a summary on the readings

Article More Than a Game:

Sports Media Framing Effects on Attitudes, Intentions, and Enjoyment Nicky Lewis 1and Andrew J. Weaver 1 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 1Indiana 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 ªThe Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permission:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/2167479513508273 com.sagepub.com at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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 add resses 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 220 Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from selection of specific content by media producers and the salience that content will have for media consumers. Media frami ng research as a whole has employed multiple approaches, with the majority of studies having a descriptive focus and fewer attempts being made at identifying re lationships 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 conten t 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 editor s 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 narra tive style the message will take. This, in turn, could influence how recipients co me 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.

Lewis and Weaver 221 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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, 222 Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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 Lewis and Weaver 223 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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:

224 Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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 ( N¼ 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 Lewis and Weaver 225 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from participants ranged from 17 to 32, with 39 females and 35 males (M¼19.92, standard deviation [ SD]¼2.18). 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. 1Following 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 226 Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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 )to9(very strongly agree ). Cronbach’sawas .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 ¼4.91). There was a significant difference between low sports fans ( M¼3.21, SD¼1.06) and high sports fans ( M¼6.28, SD¼0.88); 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)to7(very strongly agree ) and were averaged and collapsed into a single rating. Cronbach’s afor all four Lewis and Weaver 227 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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)to4(very likely ), and individual ratings were averaged across all 3 items. Cronbach’s aranged 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)to4(very much ). Individual ratings were averaged and collapsed across the 2 items. Cronbach’s aranged 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 228 Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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 Nfor 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) ¼1.76, not significant. However, there was a marginally significant main effect of frame on the implicit AMP measure, F(1, 35) ¼ 3.77, p¼ .06, Z p2¼ .10, where participants made more ‘‘pleasant’’ evaluations for athletes featured in the character frames ( M¼.56, SD¼.15, 95 %CI ¼[.51, .62]) than athletes featured in performance frames ( M¼.52, SD¼.16, 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 ( M¼2.39, SD¼.73, 95 %CI ¼[2.21, 2.54]) as com- pared to performance frames ( M¼2.26, SD¼.72, 95 %CI ¼[2.10, 2.43]), F(1, 70) ¼ 4.07, p¼ .047, Z p2¼ .55. Regarding Hypothesis 1, the character-focused stories were also enjoyed significantly more ( M¼2.77, SD¼.73, 95 %CI ¼[2.59, 2.93]) than performance-focused stories ( M¼2.36, SD¼.58, 95 %CI ¼[2.23, 2.50]), F (1, 70) ¼50.21, p<.001, Z p2 ¼ 0.42. Thus, H 1was 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 Lewis and Weaver 229 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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) ¼7.99, p ¼ .006, Z p2¼ .10, where for character frames, high sports fans intended to support athletes more in the religious condition ( M¼2.68, SD¼.85, 95 %CI ¼[2.39, 2.97]) than low sports fans ( M¼2.01, SD¼.84, 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) ¼3.43, 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 1.82 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. 230 Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from p¼ .07, Z p2¼ .05, where for character frames, high sports fans enjoyed stories more in the religious condition ( M¼2.96, SD¼.83, 95 %CI ¼[2.65, 3.26]) than low sports fans ( M¼2.60, SD¼.74, 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 1.82 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. Lewis and Weaver 231 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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 232 Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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.

Lewis and Weaver 233 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from This study was limited by several factors. Loss of data decreased the overall sample size and amount of participants a llocated 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 empl oyed a partially within-subjects design, which requires fewer subjects than between-subjects designs. Most encouraging is that significant results were still obtain ed despite this loss of data. In this partic- ular study, we were unable to detect significant differences between participants on the religiosity measur e, 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 234 Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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.

Lewis and Weaver 235 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from Appendix Character Frame: Religious 236Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from Character Frame: Nonreligious Lewis and Weaver237 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from Performance Frame: Religious 238Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from 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 Weaver239 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from Note 1. Participants completed a measure of religiosity for this study as well. There was notenough variance in the sample for it to be a meaningful individual difference variable in the analyses ( M¼1.85, standard deviation ¼0.93).

References Andersen, S. M., & Klatzky, R. L. (1987). Traits and social stereotypes: Levels of categor- ization in person perception. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ,53 , 235–246.

Carlston, D. E., & Skowronski, J. J. (2005). Linking versus thinking: Evidence for the differ- ent associative and attributional bases of spontaneous trait transference and spontaneous trait inference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ,89 , 884–898.

Carrington, B., & McDonald, I. (2009). Marxism, cultural studies and sport: Mapping the field. New York, NY: Routledge.

Cook, S. W., Borman, P. D., Moore, M. A., & Kunkel, M. A. (2000). College students’ per- ceptions of spiritual people and religious people. Journal of Psychology and Theology,28 , 125–137.

Denham, B. E. (2004). Toward an explication of media enjoyment: The synergy of social norms, viewing situations, and program content. Communication Theory,14 (4), 370–387.

Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (2007). The advantages of an inclusive definition of attitude. Social Cognition ,25 , 582–602.

Eastman, S. T., & Land, A. M. (1997). The best of both worlds: Sports fans find good seats at the bar. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 21, 156–178.

Fazio, R. H. (1990). Multiple processes by which attitudes guide behavior: The MODE model as an integrative framework. In M.P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psy- chology, 23 (pp. 75–109). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Fazio, R. H. (2007). Attitudes as object-evaluation associations of varying strength. Social Cognition ,25 , 603–637.

Fazio, R. H., Chen, J. M., McDonel, E. C., & Sherman, S. J. (1982). Attitude accessibility, attitude-behavior consistency, and the strength of the object-evaluation association.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology ,18 , 339–357.

Fiske, S. T., Neuberg, S. L., Beattie, A. E., & Milberg, S. J. (1987). Category-based and attribute-based reactions to others: S ome informational conditions of stereotyp- ing and individuating processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology ,23, 399–427.

Gans, H. J. (1979). Symbolic ethnicity: The future of ethnic groups and cultures in America. Ethnic and racial studies ,2, 1–20.

Gantz, W., Wang, Z., Paul, B., & Potter, R. F. (2006). Sports versus all comers: Comparing TV sports fans with fans of other programming genres. Journal of Broadcasting & Elec- tronic Media, 50, 95–118.

Gantz, W., & Wenner, L. A. (1995). Fanship and the television sports viewing experience. Sociology of Sports Journal ,12 , 56–74.

240 Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. (1998). Measuring individual differencesin implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psy- chology, 74, 1464–1480.

Greenwald, A. G., & Nosek, B. A. (2008). Attitudinal dissociation: What does it mean? In R. E. Petty, R. H. Fazio, & P. Brin ˜ ol (Eds.), Attitudes: Insights from the new implicit measures (pp. 65–82). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Hambrick, M. E., Simmons, J. M., Greenhalgh, G. P., & Greenwell, T. C. (2010). Understand- ing professional athletes’ use of Twitter: A content analysis of athlete tweets. International Journal of Sport Communication ,3, 454–471.

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society ,47 , 263–291.

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1984). Choices, values, and frames. American Psychologist,39 , 341–350.

Kinnally, W., Tuzunkan, F., Raney, A. A., Fitzgerald, M., & Smith, J. K. (2013). Using the schema-triggered affect model to examine disposition formation in the context of sports news. Journal of Sports Media ,8, 117–137.

Kramer, G. P., Kerr, N. L., & Carroll, J. S. (1990). Pretrial publicity, judicial remedies, and jury bias. Law and Human Behavior, 14, 409–438.

Lapchick, R. (2011). The 2011 racial and gender report card: National Basketball Associa- tion. Retrieved May 2, 2012, from http://www.tidesport.org/RGRC/2011/2011_NBA_ RGRC_FINAL%20FINAL.pdf Matuszewski, E. (2010, April 27). Tebow sets jersey sales record for NFL draftee. Bloomberg.

com . Retrieved April 30, 2012 from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-04-27/tim- tebow-sets-jersey-sales-record-for-nfl-draftee-topping-jets-sanchez.html\ Matthes, J. (2009). What’s in a frame? A content analysis of media framing studies in the world’s leading communication journals, 1990–2005. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly ,86 , 349–367.

McCombs, M. E. (2004). Setting the agenda: The mass media and public opinion. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2001). The go/no-go association task. Social Cognition,19 , 625–666.

Olson, M. A., & Fazio, R. H. (2009). Implicit and explicit measures of attitudes: The per- spective of the MODE model. In R. E. Petty, R. H. Fazio, & P. Brin ˜ ol (Eds.), Atti- tudes: Insights from the new implicit measures (pp. 19–64). New York, NY:

Psychology Press.

Payne, B. K., Cheng, C. M., Govorun, O., & Stewart, B. D. (2005). An inkblot for attitudes: Affect misattribution as implicit measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol- ogy ,89 , 277–293.

Price, J. L. (Ed.). (2005). From season to season: Sports as American religion. Macon, GA:

Mercer University Press.

Price, V., Tewksbury, D., & Powers, E. (1997) . Switching trains of thought: The impact of news frames on readers’ cognitive responses. Communication Research,24 , 481–506.

Lewis and Weaver 241 at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from Raney, A. A. (2004). Expanding disposition theory: Reconsidering character liking, moralevaluations, and enjoyment. Communication Theory,14 , 348–369.

Reysen, S. (2005). Construction of a new scale: The Reysen likability scale. Social Behavior and Personality ,33 , 201–208.

Reysen, S., & Branscombe, N. R. (2010). Fanship and fandom: Comparisons between sport and non-sport fans. Journal of Sport Behavior ,33 , 176–193.

Scheufele, D. A. (1999). Framing as a theory of media effects.Journal of communication,49 , 103–122.

Schultz, B., & Sheffer, M. L. (2010). An exploratory study of how Twitter is affecting sports journalism. International Journal of Sport Communication ,3, 226–239.

Skolnick, E. (2008, August 4). In modern sports coverage, it’s all fair game. NBCsports.com. Retrieved December 8, 2011 from http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/25998182/ns/sport- other_sports// Uleman, J. S. (1999). Spontaneous versus intentional inferences in impression formation. In S. Chaiken & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual process theories in social psychology (pp. 141–160).

New York, NY: Guilford.

van Dijk, T. A. (1985). Structures of news in the press. In T. A. Van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse and communication: New approaches to the analysis of mass media discourse and communi- cation (pp. 69–93). New York: W. de Gruyter.

Weaver, A. J., & Wilson, B. J. (2009). The role of graphic and sanitized violence in the enjoy- ment of television dramas. Human Communication Research, 35, 442–463.

Wells, B. M., Skowronski, J. J., Crawford, M. T., Scherer, C. R., & Carlston, D. E. (2011). Inference making and linking both require thinking: Spontaneous trait inference and spontaneous trait transference both rely on working memory capacity. Journal of Experi- mental Social Psychology ,47 , 1116–1126.

Zanna, M. P., & Rempel, J. K. (1988). Attitudes: A new look at an old concept. In D. Bar-Tal & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), The social psychology of knowledge (pp. 315–334). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

242 Communication & Sport 3(2) at TEMPLE UNIV on June 30, 2015 com.sagepub.com Downloaded from