For the Love of the Game : The role of social media and strategic communication in developing women’s softball in Europe

Sammanfattning: This study explores how social media contributes to the relationship between community and non-profit organizational communication in the scope of marginalized women’s sports. The analysis of the data is based on a theoretical framework of social identity and self-categorization theories in imagined communities from a non-profit, strategic organizational communication perspective. The methods used to gather the data involved a qualitative content analysis process that consisted of conducting in-depth interviews and analyzing the organization’s Facebook posts. The findings concluded that in this case study, social media aids in achieving the organization’s goals for developing softball in Europe by communicating ways to overcome the challenges through informing about softball and development programs, fostering a community for softball in Europe, and encouraging followers to take action. In addition, the organization uses social media to reinforce the identity and values of the European softball community that consists of defining its place, interest and communion through symbolic and linguistic communication strategies. As a whole, this study reveals the importance of the organization using communication to sustain the community online and offline in order to achieve its goals of developing softball in Europe. Further implications would focus on understanding how organizations can build and maintain communities through strategic communication within other fields outside of the non-profit sports sector.