Kelsey Slater

Kelsey Slater is an assistant professor of sport management in the Department of Health, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences at North Dakota State University. This is her second year at NDSU where she began her career as a faculty member after completing her PhD in Kinesiology from Mississippi State University in 2021. Her current research is in sport communication and new media within international settings with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. She has previously published research on the media presentation of the Basketball Africa League and is currently working on additional project examining the new continental championship as well as media framing of mega-sporting events in African media. Last year she won an IDEAS (Increase and Diversify Education Abroad for U.S. Students) grant sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, which she is using to develop a study abroad program for sport management students. The IDEAS grant will allow her to establish two faculty-led study abroad programs, one which will take place in South Africa and the second in Tanzania so that her students have the opportunity to experience new cultures and learn from sport scholars and practitioners in Africa.

ABSTRACT:

“African basketball in photographs: Framing an emerging continental sports league via Instagram.”

Kelsey Slater, North Dakota State University

In an interview with the President of the Basketball Africa League (BAL), Amadou Gallo Fall, he stressed the importance of broadcasting African basketball, “You have an incredible amount of talent on the continent that, until now, only gets exported. Now we want to make sure that we create a platform that allows this talent to be showcased, nurtured and developed at home” (Rofe & Krasnoff, 2020a, p. 14). One way that the BAL has ensured it remains a showcase of African talent are roster rules, as 11 of each team’s 13 players must be from Africa. Previous research shows when a league utilizes a strategy that limits foreign player roster spots, the foreign stars can bring attention to the league overall while maintaining a focus on the promotion of domestic athletes (Parrish, 2013). This may affect how the BAL promotes the league, teams and players on social media. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to examine how the BAL uses Instagram to frame the league and promote African and foreign players. 

Research questions: 

1. What type of posts does the BAL Instagram account show?
2. Did the type of posts change between the first and second season?
3. Does the BAL Instagram feature African players more than non-African players?

The researcher will use a content analytic method to examine the posts on the account. Previous research on sport organizations’ Instagram accounts will be used to guide the coding schema (Hull et al., 2019; Kim & Hull, 2017).