{"title":"Do not shut up and do dribble: social media and TV consumption","authors":"Matteo Pazzona, Nicola Spagnolo","doi":"10.1007/s00148-024-01034-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper investigates the impact of social media interest and sentiment surrounding the 2020 National Basketball Association’s involvement with the Black Lives Matter movement on the television audience in the United States. Twitter (now known as X) serves as the chosen social media platform, and we determine the sentiment expressed in tweets (messages posted on Twitter) using the XLM-RoBERTa deep language model. Our primary findings indicate that the quantity of users’ posts does not significantly influence TV viewership; instead, the tone of the messages plays a crucial role. Positive messages supporting the NBA’s engagement correlate with an increase in the number of viewers, while those expressing opposition do not. We argue that this asymmetry may stem from a positive elasticity among casual (non-habitual) NBA viewers concerning positive sentiments toward NBA involvement. These viewers are likely to align with the NBA’s stances on civil rights and BLM. In contrast, the core NBA fan base exhibits inelastic demand and is unlikely to cease watching NBA games. A comprehensive set of robustness checks reinforces the validity of our key conclusions.</p>","PeriodicalId":48013,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Population Economics","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Population Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-024-01034-7","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of social media interest and sentiment surrounding the 2020 National Basketball Association’s involvement with the Black Lives Matter movement on the television audience in the United States. Twitter (now known as X) serves as the chosen social media platform, and we determine the sentiment expressed in tweets (messages posted on Twitter) using the XLM-RoBERTa deep language model. Our primary findings indicate that the quantity of users’ posts does not significantly influence TV viewership; instead, the tone of the messages plays a crucial role. Positive messages supporting the NBA’s engagement correlate with an increase in the number of viewers, while those expressing opposition do not. We argue that this asymmetry may stem from a positive elasticity among casual (non-habitual) NBA viewers concerning positive sentiments toward NBA involvement. These viewers are likely to align with the NBA’s stances on civil rights and BLM. In contrast, the core NBA fan base exhibits inelastic demand and is unlikely to cease watching NBA games. A comprehensive set of robustness checks reinforces the validity of our key conclusions.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Population Economics is an international quarterly that publishes original theoretical and applied research in all areas of population economics.
Micro-level topics examine individual, household or family behavior, including household formation, marriage, divorce, fertility choices, education, labor supply, migration, health, risky behavior and aging. Macro-level investigations may address such issues as economic growth with exogenous or endogenous population evolution, population policy, savings and pensions, social security, housing, and health care.
The journal also features research into economic approaches to human biology, the relationship between population dynamics and public choice, and the impact of population on the distribution of income and wealth. Lastly, readers will find papers dealing with policy issues and development problems that are relevant to population issues.The journal is published in collaboration with POP at UNU-MERIT, the Global Labor Organization (GLO) and the European Society for Population Economics (ESPE).Officially cited as: J Popul Econ Factor (RePEc): 13.576 (July 2018) Rank 69 of 2102 journals listed in RePEc