Better late than never ... Happy New Year to everyone from the Journal of Sports Media.

One of my research projects for the new year involves communication on sports message boards and blog sites. I've been looking at some of the conversations going on between fans related to the upcoming BCS championship game between LSU and Ohio State, and a couple of things jumped out immediately:

The sheer level of communication is staggering. Thousands upon thousands of messages at all hours of the day and night. It makes you wonder how the people have any time to work or even sleep.

More disturbing, the level of anger and hostility really surprised me. I expected a high level of passion, but the level of discourse is amazingly vulgar, especially considering all the profanity. If you look at the comments in terms of positive or negative, there are far more negative posts. Some could be considered the technological equivilent of burning down someone's house.

I'm not sure if this indicates a high level of involvement and indentification or simply the continuing deevolution of public discourse. I would be interested in any comments or feedback, especially from those who take part in these boards.