Mapping the Outfield of My Cricket-Themed Field Site

In the above video I discussed my mindmap, and following on from that I will discuss my field site in this blog post.

I feel that I will be able to bring a range of skills to study my niche ethnographically, through my knowledge of the sport itself and my involvement in sports media as a writer and reader so far in my life. Again this niche was chosen as it relates exactly to the career I most want in the creative industries, and I feel it could help anyone interested in a career or in the hobby of sports media and media analysis.  Another reason I chose this topic was because I enjoy looking at this niche in an autoethnographic sense, and thinking about my role in it all, and completing this map made me contemplate my persona, and my current or potential mediums, within the niche.

At this stage of my research I feel that I have narrowed my niche, and am now problematising to ensure that there is a benefit for the readers I am looking to help out in navigating this niche as analysts or creators. This has allowed me to select Jarrod Kimber and Neil Manthorp as the two creators I most want to engage with, as they have distinctly different styles, while holding, from what I can tell at this early stage, quite similar audiences. I will look to revisit others such as Machel and C.S, as well as others I may find on a range of networks, but for now these two are the focal points of my research.

What I am aiming to look at is which pieces, whether they are written articles, spoken videos, podcasts or long-read features, and how I receive them through a range of parameters. This includes considering where I am when I engage in a piece, how I am feeling, my initial thoughts or whether or not I have already viewed a piece, and later once I have taken in the content what I feel was best about it 

I can then compare that to others who I involve myself with both overtly and covertly within the niche through comments and other discussion forums, to gain a better understanding of my fellow audience members.

There is scholarly research about the use of video versus written pieces, which is more valid in this case than venturing into the discourse of online versus hard copy as both now write primarily in the online space. 

Overall I feel that this mapping of the field site will help in the continual study of my persona and those within the media niche throughout this semester, and hope that my experience in the past and keenness for the future within this sect of media allows me to provide best for others and for myself through this research.