Selling a university : a content analysis of NCAA Division I colleges’ featured YouTube videos using the Spirituality in Advertising Framework.

American universities are using social media outlets to reach audiences; moreover, the collegiate YouTube channels included in this study had more than 1.5 million subscribers as of August 31, 2018. Past studies have identified spiritual elements within commercial advertising (Marmor-Lavie & Stout, 2016). Explicitly identifying aspects of spirituality using the Spirituality in Advertising Framework (SAF), this study analyzes NCAA Division I videos (n=115) featured on the institutions’ official YouTube channels. A key finding was the presence of spiritual ideas in each NCAA conference, in public and private colleges, in Carnegie R1, R2 and R3 research institutions and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). The SAF core idea most frequently identified in the study's video was the “integration with others” (n=51) or to join with others and be a part of something (Marmor-Lavie, Stout, & Lee, 2009, p.9). Nevertheless, represented at varying frequencies were all 16 SAF core ideas.