Content typology of the Official Account of the Tokyo ۲۰۲۰ Olympic Games on Twitter

Sports organizations can build relationships with their stakeholders through social media (SM). SM is considered a marketing tool or a communication tool in research. Several researchers showed that modern technology like SM encourages sports organizations to develop, maintain and enhance a strong relationship with their audiences. Likewise, SM platforms are considered sources of information and as efficient media to engage with users. While SM studies have focused on professional sports and college sports, this study fills the gap by investigating how the OCOG of Tokyo ۲۰۲۰ utilized SM to connect with users.This research used qualitative content analysis to investigate how OCOG of the Tokyo ۲۰۲۰ uses Twitter. The ۲۳۶۴ tweets were extracted using the Python programing language via Twitter s Application Programming Interface (API). A coding scheme was developed based on the prior research. Firstly, two scholars coded ۲۰% of tweets after measuring intercoder reliability (the Kappa coefficient, ۰.۷۵), then coded ۸۰% remained tweets.The Informing, Communication, Activation, and Recognition formed the basis of content analysis in this study. The X۲ test revealed statistically significant differences across four categories (X۲ = ۳۸۶.۵۶۰, df = ۲۰, p = .۰۰۰). Generally, the Communication category accounted for the most significant share of the tweets over the six years (۳۳%), followed by Informing (۳۲.۷%) and Activation (۲۳.۸%).The present study was conducted to examine how the official Twitter account of the Tokyo ۲۰۲۰ Olympic Games use content types to communicate with users. Although Twitter can reinforce the connection between a sports organization and users, sports organizations primarily use Twitter to share information. In contrast, the present study suggested that sports organizations utilize social media to communicate with users. The finding shows that the Tokyo ۲۰۲۰ OCOG uses Twitter rather than for two-way communication with the users.

Keywords:

Twitter , Content analysis , Topology , Olympics , Tokyo