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Social television (Social TV) viewing of live sports events is an emerging trend. The realm of transformative service research (TSR) envisions that every service consumption experience must lead to consumer well-being. Currently, a full appreciation of the well-being factors obtained through Social TV viewing is lacking. This study aims to gain a holistic understanding of the concept of digital sports well-being obtained through live Social TV viewing of sports events.

Focus group interviews were used to collect data from the 40 regular sports viewers, and the qualitative data obtained is analyzed thematically using NVivo 12. A post hoc verification of the identified themes is done to narrow down the most critical themes.

The exploration helped understand the concept of digital sports well-being (DSW) obtained through live Social TV sports spectating and identified five critical themes that constitute its formation. The themes that emerged were virtual connectedness, vividness, uncertainty reduction, online disinhibition and perceived autonomy. This study defines the concept and develops a conceptual model for DSW.

This study adds to the body of knowledge in TSR, transformative sport service research, digital customer engagement, value co-creation in digital platforms, self-determination theory and flow theory. The qualitative study is exploratory, with participants’ views based on a single match in one particular sport, and as such, its findings are restrained by the small sample size and the specific sport. To extend this study’s implications, empirical research involving a larger and more diversified sample involving multiple sports Social TV viewing experiences would help better understand the DSW concept.

The research provides insights to Social TV live streamers of sporting events and digital media marketers about the DSW construct and identifies the valued DSW dimensions that could provide a competitive advantage.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the exploration is the first attempt to describe the concept of DSW and identify associated themes.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it investigates the relationship between television, its audiences and Twitter around the creation of social TV events. Here it contributes to knowledge by charting usage in relation to different types of programmes and by comparing Twitter to Facebook data. Second, it evaluates the way in which student-led research can be used to conduct audience studies with the help of Twitter.

The research applies a quantitative approach, measuring the volume of Twitter messages before, during and after two different types of television programmes, i.e. Reality TV (The X Factor and The Only Way is Essex) and sports broadcasts (football and Formula One). Brief comparisons are also drawn with data collected from Facebook. The pedagogical evaluation of the research is based on self-reflection by the author/tutor.

The research established similar trends and patterns of viewer engagement for both types of television programming, with key activity during and towards the end of a broadcast which points to viewers using Twitter, or Facebook, while watching the event. The findings are compared to previous studies on television programmes and Twitter use. The study also identified that student research using Twitter can lead to a valuable learning experience as it allows students to use their own knowledge of social media to inform the research process.

This research makes a contribution to the small yet growing body of studies examining Twitter activity in relation to TV events. It also contributes to knowledge on the educational use of social media by providing an account of how Twitter can be applied as a research tool by students.

This study aims to address the following research questions: Do the two types of service firms (individual or aggregator) have similar competitiveness on online search ads? How should the two types of service firms select optimal branded keywords to improve search performance? In addition, how do consumers’ search queries influence the service search performance of the two types of service firms?

In this study, the authors conduct an empirical analysis by building a two-stage choice modeling on the process of search engine ranking and consumer click-through decisions. The authors estimate the parameter coefficients and test the hypotheses using maximum likelihood estimation in the logistic regression model.

The empirical findings suggest that consumer response rates are highly dependent upon three aspects (service types, branded keyword strategy and consumer search query). First, the authors found that service aggregators receive greater consumer responses than individual service providers. Second, depending upon the various branded keyword strategies (e.g. generic vs branded, “within-type” vs “cross-type”) implemented by service aggregators or individual firms, the expected consumer responses could be quite different. Finally, customer’s search query, being either generic or branded, also has direct effect and interactive effect with service type on how consumers would response to the sponsored ads in the service search process.

The limitation of the research is twofold. First, conversion rate is not considered in the model estimation due to the nature of the data set. Second, the discussion about the keywords selection strategies is focusing on the hospitality industry. Future research shall further validate the generalizability into other industries.

First, given this competitive advantage, service aggregators should take an aggressive approach to adopting paid search strategy in acquiring new users and enhance its brand salience in the service ecosystem. Second, when considering other competitor’s brand names to include, if a firm is a service provider (e.g. hotel), a strategy that can help it receive higher consumer response would be to use “within-type” rather than “cross-type” branded keyword strategy. If a firm is a service aggregator, a better branded keyword strategy would be to use “across-type” instead of “within-type” approach. In addition, given that consumer’s brand awareness can influence the effectiveness of branded keyword strategy, online service search should target consumers in earlier stages of a decision journey.

The authors believe their theoretical framework can provide actionable solutions to service firms to ease customer’s search process, increase customer’s stickiness using search engines and add value to the customer relationships with all services entities within the digital ecosystem.

This study is the first to expand online search marketing into granule examinations (main and interactive effects of three key factors) in the service search domain. First, the authors differentiate service firms into two categories – online travel aggregators and individual hotels in the model. Second, the authors introduce two sets of new classifications of branded keywords for online service search research (i.e. own versus other brand and “cross-type” versus “within-type” branded keywords). Third, this study integrates service consumers’ search word specificity into the conceptual framework which is often missing in previous online search research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interrelationship between television (TV) consumption (viewing ratings), engagement behaviors of different actors on Twitter (TV programs, media, celebrities and viewers) and the content of engagement behaviors (affective, program-related and social content).

TV ratings and Twitter data were obtained. The content of tweets was analyzed by means of a sentiment analysis. A vector auto regression model was used to understand the interrelationship between tweets of different actors and TV consumption.

First, the results showed a negative interrelationship between TV viewing and viewers’ tweeting behavior. Second, tweets by celebrities and media exhibited similar patterns and were both affected mostly by the number of tweets by viewers. Finally, the content of tweets matters. Affective tweets positively relate to TV viewing, and program-related and social content positively relates to the number of tweets by viewers.

The findings help us understand the online engagement ecosystem and provide insights into drivers of TV consumption and online engagement of different actors.

The results indicate that content producers may want to focus on stimulating affective conversations on Twitter to trigger more online and offline engagement. The results also call for rethinking the meaning of TV metrics.

While some studies have explored viewer interactions on Twitter, only a few studies have looked at the effects of such interactions on variables outside of social media, such as TV consumption. Moreover, the authors study the interrelations between Twitter interactions with TV consumption, which allows us to examine the effect of online engagement on offline behaviors and vice versa. Finally, the authors take different actors into account when studying real-life online engagement.

The purpose of this study was to examine the millennial fans decision-making process in connection with various sport consumption behaviors (i.e. game attendance, TV viewing, participation in online activities, and participation in social media activities) using a modified model of goal-directed behavior (i.e. Sport Fan MGB).

We collected data using Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 222) to test the hypothesized model. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the psychometric properties of the measurement model, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to test the hypotheses.

Sport Fan MGB was found have good psychometric properties. In addition, the findings indicate that the Sport Fan MGB explained various millennial fan behaviors (i.e., event attendance, TV viewing, online activity participation, and social media activity participation).

This paper examined the validity of the Sport Fan MGB and improved the predictability of the millennial fans' sport consumption behavior decision-making process.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of patriotism, nostalgia, drama and excitement of the game, and interest in star players to predict fans’ intentions to follow one-day cricket in near future. Furthermore, social influence is positioned as a moderator to enrich the understanding of fans’ motives to follow one-day cricket.

The data are collected by means of a cross-sectional survey conducted among 609 university students enroled in Pakistani and Sri Lankan universities. The collected data are analysed by employing a structural equation modelling procedures to reach meaningful conclusions.

The variables of patriotism, nostalgic associations, excitement and drama of the game, and interest in star players are found to positively relate to the fans’ intentions to follow one-day cricket in near future. However, the moderating effects of social influence only moderated with interest in star players, which has practical and theoretical implications.

The study is an original contribution to the field of sports marketing. The proposed relationships are based on social identity theory paradigm. Furthermore, the moderating effects of social influence and a multi-country data are unique to this study. Finally, in previous studies, football fans’ motivation and test-match cricket fans’ motivations are studied, hence one-day cricket as a context is also unique to this study.

Aiming to explore how audience consume and produce media events in the digital, distributed and social era we live in, the paper analyzes the viewing patterns of video news items during a media event (the week of Donald Trump's presidential visit to Israel, the first to a country outside the US), compared to a parallel comparable “ordinary” period (two weeks later, in which no inordinacy events occurred). The comparison focused on simultaneous activities of audiences engaged with the event, with either related (i.e. second screening) or unrelated (i.e. media multitasking).

The research is a diary study based on a dedicated mobile app in which respondents reported their news-related behavior during two periods: a media event period and comparable “ordinary” period.

Participants reported watching significantly more news video items in the first day of the media event week compared to the first day of the “ordinary” week. More than half of the viewing reports of the media event were not on TV. In the media event week, there were significantly higher percentages of viewing reports on smartphones/computers and significantly higher percentages of second-screening reports.

This is the first study that empirically explores the viewing patterns of video news items during a media event, compared to an “ordinary” period, focusing on media second screening of audiences engaged with the event. This comparison may reveal whether (1) media events still retain their centrality in a multi-screen era and (2) the role of the internet and online social media in the experience of media events.

This article analyses how different configurations of stakeholders create opportunities for the production of popular TV sports contests. Based on qualitative methodologies, biathlon and cross-country skiing are used as contrasting cases. The paper concludes that the relative success of the International Biathlon Union is due to a favourable network position in relation to stakeholders. By comparison, the International Ski Federation suffers from a weak position within a dense stakeholder network.

This study aims to explain the impact of the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 on China's image in the international TV media. It applies agenda-setting theory to analyse foreign TV coverage of the Olympics in nine countries. Using Rivenburgh's national image richness construct, it attempts to make sense of the coverage before and after Beijing 2008, particularly its impact on the image of the host country. The study concludes that the breadth and attribution of China's image remained relatively stable, that these factors did not improve China's national image directly but that indirectly they raised awareness of China in the international media and framed the host country's image more clearly.