Online social network analysis among U.S. Olympic Committee, national governing body, and athletes: Focusing on the official Twitter.

The purpose of this study was to explore and provide insight into the construction of the social network for the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) (n = 1) including National Governing Bodies of winter sports (n = 8), and individual athletes (n = 298) on Twitter. Using social network analysis, this study identified how the network is organized, who influential members are, and how they use Twitter in terms of information diffusion. Results show that only five members did not have direct connection to others, in- or out-degree. Although snowboarder Shaun White, two-time Olympic gold medalist, had a four times greater followers than USOC, USOC was the most influential member in the network with greatest in- and out-degree and betweenness centrality. Influential members from USOC and NGBs’ Twitter used more variables of information diffusion (e.g., hashtag, retweet, reply, and mention) except hyperlink than influential members from athletes’ Twitter. In addition, fewer selected hashtags were used more frequently by USOC and NGBs’ Twitter while more hashtags were used less frequently by athletes’ Twitter.