Relationship between Chinese viewers’ attitude toward fansub videos and attitude against sponsorship

Abstract In this study, we investigated Chinese viewers’ attitudes toward fan-subtitled (fansub) online courses, sponsorship, and the sponsors of online courses. In addition, the relationships among these three attitude variables were examined. A cross-sectional research design based on a quantitative methodology was employed in the study. An online questionnaire was sent on the forum page of a selected fansub group’s website, and a sample size of 216 participants was obtained. The main analytical tools were one-sample t-tests and Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results from the participants showed that the three attitude variables were consistently positive and correlated with each other, implying that audiences generally like fansub videos and that sponsoring online fansub courses can be effective in generating a positive brand impression. Sponsorship executives should communicate the goodwill provided by the sponsor rather than just simply commercializing the activity. From a broader perspective, these findings provide additional arguments in favor of online courses as desirable tools for knowledge transfer.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Many educational contents are nowadays available online. Although some of these contents are sponsored, viewers' attitudes on sponsored educational contents remain understudied. In this study, we investigated Chinese viewers' attitudes toward fan-subtitled (fansub) online courses, sponsorship, and the sponsors of online courses. In addition, the relationships among these three attitude variables were examined. A crosssectional research design based on a quantitative methodology was employed in the study. An online questionnaire was sent on the forum page of a selected fansub group's website, and a sample size of 216 participants was obtained. The main analytical tools were one-sample t-tests and Pearson's correlation coefficient. The results from the participants showed that the three attitude variables were consistently positive and correlated with each other, implying that audiences generally like fansub videos. Addtitionally, the outcomes of this study suggest that sponsorship does not undermine the knowledge transfer, which is an argument in favor of using fansub online courses as educational tools, and that sponsoring online fansub courses can be effective in generating a positive brand impression. Sponsorship executives should communicate the goodwill provided by the sponsor rather than just simply commercializing the activity. From a broader perspective, these findings provide additional arguments in favor of online courses as desirable tools for knowledge transfer.

Background
Following the rapid growth of the internet and new technologies in recent years, audiovisual consumption has significantly expanded. This has resulted in young audiences consuming a diverse variety of audiovisual products from different parts of the world, including TV series, films, and cartoons (Hatcher, 2005;Yao, 2021). These products are freely available online in many countries, including China, where fan-subtitled (fansub) versions are accessible to audiences. Fansubbing involves the translation and subtitling of different forms of audiovisual content into a language dissimilar to the original language. Fansub videos refer to audiovisual products translated, subtitled, and distributed online by fans (Condry, 2010;Díaz Cintas & Sanchez, 2006;Gao, 2018). Yao (2021) highlighted that fansubbing had grown immensely because of internet proliferation, enabling fansub videos to spread freely and inexpensively. This has revolutionized how fansubbers distribute and organize their products (Díaz Cintas & Sanchez, 2006;Hatcher, 2005;Yao, 2021). Fansub activities effectively cross language and cultural barriers between audiences and foreign audiovisual products (Yao, 2021;Zou, 2021). These activities can provide a potential benefit to relevant industries by generating viewers' interest and attention before an official release, especially when the audience is outside the country where the audiovisual products were originally released (Lessig, 2004). The translation of audiovisual content enables viewers who are unfamiliar with the language used in the original product to understand the content.
Educational videos can also be found in a wide range of contents that fansubbing communities adapt -some members even mention the dissemination of knowledge as one of the main reasons for their engagement in fansubbing communities (Yao, 2021). Garrison (2011) and Fallon and Sharon (2016) defined e-learning as the process of education made possible by the internet and other technical means. From this perspective, fansubbing can be considered a tool that substantially contributes to the popularity of e-learning and online courses. In particular, fansubbing facilitates the translation of online courses into a language easily understood by the target audience, enabling them to develop profound knowledge. Even some higher education institutions and corporates have embraced this trend as an approach to provide learning materials and improve performance (Talaván & Ávila-Cabrera, 2017). It has been established that e-learning-based students slightly outperform classroom-based students (Phipps & Merisotis, 1999;Elfaki et al., 2019) and that some e-learners reported a higher level of satisfaction than classroom-based students did (Elfaki et al., 2019;Jung et al., 2002).
Brands have begun sponsoring fansub works due to the enormous growth of fansub videos and their efficacy in communicating with viewers. Recently, embedded sponsored advertisements have become widespread in Chinese fansub works (He, 2014), implying that many companies have seized sponsored fansub videos as a promotional tool. This is unsurprising-as traditional advertising become increasingly expensive, sponsored advertising has emerged as a cost-effective alternative that generally receives a positive evaluation from consumers (Meenaghan, 2013). Sponsorship-linked marketing generally means the implementation of sponsorship to build and communicate an associated image with a sponsored entity (J. A. Meenaghan, 1983;Cornwell, 1995). Sponsored adverts can be found both online and offline and range from services, such as language schools or study-abroad agencies, to tangible products, such as confectionery. Posting photos and text on Weibo and embedding QR codes are additional techniques adopted in presenting sponsored content in fansub videos.
Recently, sponsorship as a communication tool has grown remarkably because of its positive evaluation by consumers (Huber et al., 2015;Meenaghan, 2001). According to the IEG (2018), the total global sponsorship spending increased steadily from 2015 and reached USD 62.7 billion in 2017. Meanwhile, the annual growth rate of sponsorship spending is 4.3%, surpassing the rate of promotion (1.8%) and advertising (3.5%). However, despite the increasing growth of global sponsorship, most sponsorships are focused on sports, whereas other areas such as online courses, arts, or social causes are neglected (Walliser, 2003). Fansub online courses receive a considerable number of views (Netease, 2019), although different from massive sports events. Nonetheless, studies regarding viewers' attitudes toward online fansub content are limited (O'Hagan, 2009).
Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, no researcher has investigated the effects of using fansub videos for educational purposes. However, multiple studies have shown that student satisfaction with learning materials is a determinant of academic success (Leal-Rodriguez & Albort-Morant, 2019;Sahin & Yilmaz, 2020). Presuming that fansubbing groups provide quality translations that closely follow the original contents, knowledge transfer between a course and its viewers should be similar to the knowledge transfer in the culture in which the contents were created and approximately on the level of traditional learning (Elfaki et al., 2019). The main presumption in this study is that the content of online fansub videos is not more obtrusive than the contents of the original video. This study can be categorized into two aspects-fansub videorelated and sponsored advertisement-related characteristics. Most technical characteristics of fansub videos are the same as those of the original video. The main difference is the addition of subtitles. Although various strategies of presenting sponsored advertisements are used, most of them are unobtrusive or sufficiently short not to considerably disturb one's attention. Nevertheless, the audiences may still perceive such advertisements as an unfavorable addition to online courses that undermine their attention and hence affect knowledge transfer. In other words, general dissatisfaction with the sponsorship of fansub online courses could undermine knowledge transfer, which is the main purpose of such courses. This motivated us to set the following research goals: (1) To investigate Chinese viewers' attitudes toward online fansub courses.
(2) To examine Chinese viewers' attitudes toward sponsorship and the sponsors of online fansub courses.
(3) To study the relationship among attitudes toward online fansub courses, sponsorship, and the sponsors.

Fansub videos
The original concept of fansub was focused on translating Japanese animations, but later it broadened to include all types of foreign audiovisual products, such as TV series, movies, or talk shows (He, 2014). Translators and all individuals involved in this activity are called fansubbers (Gao, 2018).
The first Chinese fansub group emerged around 2002 (Wang, 2017), translating Japanese anime into Chinese. English to Chinese fansub groups also emerged simultaneously, resulting in the translation of Friends. In 2006, a fansub group named Jumpcn started embedding advertising clips provided by sponsors in their work to obtain financial support to run their website. The process of producing fansub videos involves six steps of collaborative working: raw acquisition, translation, timing, revising, encoding, and distribution (Deng, 2016;Hatcher, 2005). Usually, sponsors' QR codes and advertising video clips are embedded in online course videos in the encoding step (He, 2014).

Fansub online courses in China
Various contents, such as TV series, talk shows, and online courses, can be translated into fansub videos. The popularity of Chinese online fansub courses reflects the prosperity of e-learning. According to the EU SME Center (2014), the growing affluence and popularity of the internet, as well as the value of education in Chinese people's minds, have prompted the e-learning market to rise dramatically. Most higher education institutions and corporate training organizations employ e-learning to teach and improve performance (Rosenberg & Foshay, 2002).
The integrated concept of e-learning covers its particular subsets, such as M-learning (mobilelearning), where learning is mediated by mobile devices, and D-learning. From this perspective, any instruction delivered on a digital device, such as a desktop computer, laptop computer, tablet, or smartphone, intended to support learning, as well as online courses, can be considered a form of e-learning (Clark & Mayer, 2016).
Online courses offer learners flexibility and convenience to learn. They may not necessarily need to travel to the education institution and attend a lecture as scheduled, which allows them flexibility and freedom to learn anywhere and anytime. Unsurprisingly, students' satisfaction and e-learning effectiveness studies have shown that e-learning-based students' performance is comparable to that of classroom-based students (Bullen, 1999).
Moreover, in terms of advertising in the learning environment, Ogba et al. (2012) found that respondents showed positive attitudes toward advertising embedded in a virtual learning system. They attributed this to the characteristics of their sample, which comprised students enrolled in business or management schools who may have more positive attitudes toward advertising than the general public.

Consumer attitude
Attitudes are essential factors because they affect consumer behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Attitude is defined as a person's overall evaluation of a concept (Peter & Olson, 2010). Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) defined attitude as "a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner concerning a given object" (Page 6). Brand attitude is a consistently favorable or unfavorable tendency that a consumer has or the overall evaluation of a consumer toward a certain brand (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). Historically, two major theoretical views can be identified in attitude research (Lutz, 1991): the tripartite and unidimensional views of attitude. The two theoretical views are discussed below.

The tripartite view of attitude
On the basis of this view, an attitude comprises three components: cognition, affection, and conation ( Figure 1; Anilkumar & Joseph, 2012;Eagly & Chaiken, 1998). Cognition refers to all thoughts and beliefs that a consumer has regarding the attitude object. Affection represents emotions felt toward the attitude object, which can occur as favorable or unfavorable emotional responses. Conation represents the intended and actual behavior of an individual.
The tripartite view of attitude is well established theoretically. However, empirical research regarding this orientation is inadequate. Practically, attitude measurement only comprises the affection component. The cognition and conation components have not been measured that often in early attitude research, which has become a major criticism of this perspective (Lutz, 1991). Therefore, the unidimensional view of attitude was developed based on the tripartite view.

Unidimensional view of attitude
According to this view, an attitude comprises only the affective component, which represents the degree of favorable or unfavorable evaluation of the attitude object. The other two components still exist but play different roles (Lutz, 1991). Cognition represents beliefs regarding a brand or product. Once consumers acquire these beliefs, they will then form an attitude by evaluating the brands. Conation is divided into two due to an individual's attitude: behavioral intention and actual behavior. Beliefs and behavioral elements are not considered parts of attitude but are viewed as antecedents and consequences of attitude, respectively (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; see, Figure 1).

Sponsorship
Sponsorship is a rapidly developing area of marketing in the modern world (IEG, 2018). As traditional media, such as advertising, become increasingly expensive, sponsorship is considered a cost-effective alternative. In addition, consumers evaluate sponsorship positively (Meenaghan, 2013). Sponsorship means an investment, in cash or other kinds, to support a property such as a sports team, sports event, entertainment, nonprofit event, or organization (IEG, 2000). Sponsorship-linked marketing means an organization's efforts to build and communicate an associated image with a sponsored entity (J. A. Meenaghan, 1983;Cornwell, 1995).

Attitude toward sponsorship
Consumer attitudinal constructs toward sponsorship have been developed and examined by several scholars (Lee et al., 1997;Olson, 2010). On the basis of the definition of sponsorshiplinked marketing, Lee et al. (1997) developed a conceptual construct of consumer attitude toward sponsorship (see, Figure 2). This construct comprises three components: attitude toward a sponsored entity, attitude toward commercialization, and attitude toward behavioral intent. Attitude toward behavioral intent can be translated to consumer willingness to purchase sponsored products. Attitude toward a sponsored entity means a consistently favorable or unfavorable response to an event (see, Figure 3). In this study, the event is watching an online fansub course. Consumers' attitudes may differ because of different perceptions or other individual factors, which would affect the outcome of sponsorship activities. This attitude is relatively stable because of attitude characteristics (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005). Cornwell et al. (2005) summarized the theories used in the literature to describe the mechanics of sponsorship from a management perspective. Those theories include mere exposure, low-level  (Lutz, 1991) processing, reactivation, matching and congruence, articulation, balance theory/image transfer, and identification. In this study, we focus on the image transfer model (Gwinner, 1997). The image transfer model (Gwinner, 1997) is an extension of the transfer model of McCracken (1989). The image transfer model was based on an associated learning mechanism suggested by Keller (1993) in the marketing literature. This model suggested that consumers would transfer the significance that they associated with a celebrity to the brand or product that the celebrity endorsed in an advertisement. In other words, when a celebrity and brand or product are paired in an advertisement, the significance associated with the celebrity will move to the brand or product in a consumer's mind. Gwinner (1997) extended the image transfer model to describe how sponsorship affects attitudes, suggesting that as consumers associate celebrities with certain significances, a sponsored entity is associated with certain attributes and attitudes. This agrees with the sponsorship theory (J. A. Meenaghan, 1983;Cornwell et al., 2005), which states that sponsorship can modify consumers' interest, awareness, and purchase intentions regarding the sponsoring brand. Martensen et al. (2007) described the process further: first, the attitudes toward an event or object are formed, which through a "spreading activation process" (see Anderson, 1983) generalize onto attitudes toward sponsors. Therefore, the effects seem to go both ways: attitudes toward sponsored entities could affect the attitudes toward sponsors and vice versa.

Outcomes of earlier studies
The previous discussion leads to the construct of attitudes toward sponsorship, which was developed and examined by several scholars (Lee et al., 1997;Olson, 2010). According to Lee et al. (1997), this construct comprises three components: attitude toward a sponsored entity, attitude toward commercialization, and attitude toward behavioral intention. Attitude toward behavioral intention means consumers' willingness to purchase sponsored products, whereas attitude toward a sponsored entity means a consistently favorable or unfavorable response to an event. Meanwhile, attitude toward commercialization means consumers' reaction to the sponsorinitiated commercial activity surrounding the sponsored entity. Madrigal (2001) studied sponsorship in the context of sports events and found that companies have increasingly used sponsorship as a marketing communication tool because they expected that the positive attitudes toward a sponsored entity would transfer to their brand. McDonald (1991) examined consumer attitudes toward sponsorship in the context of sports events and found that consumers may have a positive attitude toward sponsors due to positive attitudes toward their supported entities.
Baker (1999) stated that sponsorship works similarly to advertising: it targets consumers in a situation in which they pay less attention to the stimulus and more to a specific entity. Such consumers may passively accept the promoted messages as their focus is on other entities. However, a newer study only partially confirmed these explanations. That is, Maricic et al. (2019) studied the recall and recognition of embedded advertisements of sponsors in the context of sports events. They found that involvement in a sport, exposure to a sponsored event, and the sponsor's awareness do not influence the sponsor's attitude. However, sponsor awareness and attitude toward sponsors influence consumers' willingness to purchase sponsored brands.
Altogether, outside the context of fansub videos, sponsorship seems to be widely used and is considered an effective marketing strategy. Sincerity or altruism, which some may consider the underlying motivation for fansub videos, has a positive relationship with sponsorship attitudinal effects (Alexandris et al., 2008;Speed & Thompson, 2000). However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies on the effects of sponsorship have been conducted. Although the same effects of sponsorship could be expected in the context of fansub e-learning as in other forms of sponsorship, positive attitudes toward fansub videos could be translated into attitudes toward their sponsors and vice versa (Baker, 1999;McDonald, 1991)-this does not have to be the case (Maricic et al., 2019). Precisely, if sponsorship seems too specific and obtrusive, its effectiveness could be reduced (Goldfarb & Tucker, 2011), especially if the advertisements disrupt attention. Therefore, we focused on answering the following research questions.

Research questions
(1) RQ 1: What are the Chinese viewers' attitudes toward watching online fansub courses? H1: Chinese viewers have a positive attitude toward fansub online courses. This agrees with the study by Elfaki et al. (2019), who focused on online courses in general, under the presumption that viewers could choose to watch online courses based on their preferences.
(2) RQ 2: What are the Chinese viewers' attitudes toward the sponsorship activity of online fansub courses?
H2: On the basis of the dominantly unobtrusive nature of advertising in fansub online courses and the presumption of the image transfer model (Gwinner, 1997), Chinese viewers have a positive attitude toward fansub online courses' sponsorship activities.
(3) RQ 3: What are the Chinese viewers' attitudes toward the sponsor brands of fansub online courses?
H3: In line with the image transfer model (Gwinner, 1997), Chinese viewers have a positive attitude toward brands that sponsor fansub online courses.
(4) RQ 4: What are the relationships among Chinese viewers' attitudes toward online fansub courses, sponsorship activity, and sponsor brands?
H4: There is a positive correlation between a pair of Chinese viewers' attitudes toward sponsorship activity, sponsor brands, and online fansub courses (see, Figure 1). This also agrees with the image transfer model (Gwinner, 1997).

Significance of this study
This study enhances the understanding of Chinese viewers of online fansub courses in terms of how they evaluate fansub videos, sponsorship activity, and sponsor brands. It provides empirical support and implications for brands and companies when they need to make sponsorship a decision and guides them to maximize the effects of sponsorship, especially when the sponsored entity is a fansub group. This agrees with Walliser's (2003) argument on the relevance of studying the effects of sponsorship in various contexts. In addition, the findings of this study are expected to enrich the literature in both fansub and sponsorship fields and pave the way for future research.

Participants
We employed a convenience sampling approach. The decision to apply convenience instead of random sampling was based on the nature of this study: as our population of interest comprises individuals who watch fansub educational materials, random sampling could have resulted in collecting data on many participants irrelevant to the study. The total population of this research comprised individuals who watched fansub online courses while living in mainland China. The estimated size of the population was 195 million (iiMedia iResearch, 2019). On the basis of the Yamane formula (Yamane, 1967), at an acceptance sampling error of 7%, the sample size was estimated to be 200 participants. The sample comprised 216 Chinese citizens aged between 18 and 45 years, with 50.5% between 18 and 25 years old. Most participants were females (n = 132 or 61.11% of the total sample).
Most participants held a bachelor's degree (n = 150 individuals or 69.44% of the total sample), whereas few held a master's degree (n = 56 or 25.93% of the total sample). Further, only three participants had a Ph.D. or higher degree (i.e., 1.29% of the total sample), and the remaining participants completed only secondary education (n = 7 or 3.24% of the sample).
Regarding occupation, the largest group of participants was full-time employed (n = 88 or 40.74% of the total sample), followed by part-time employed individuals (n = 65 or 30.09% of the total sample) and students (n = 59 or 27.32%). In terms of monthly income, 54 individuals (or 25% of the total sample) earned 5,001-7,500 Yuan per month, followed by 38 participants with a monthly income of 2,501-5,000 Yuan and individuals earning 7,501-10,000 Yuan, which comprised 17.59% of the total sample.

Research instruments
An online self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from participants, who were required to complete all questions in the questionnaire within two weeks. The online questionnaire used in this study was powered by www.wjx.cn, the Chinese equivalent of Google Form, and translated from English to Chinese by a language expert. The translation was checked by two Chinese native speakers to ensure its easy comprehension. Participation was voluntary, and participants who received incentives were randomly selected from the 216-person sample by the function of wjx.
The entire questionnaire comprised 5 parts and 30 questions: 2 screening questions, 5 questions to assess viewers' attitudes toward online fansub courses, 14 questions for measuring attitude toward sponsorship, 3 questions for attitude toward sponsors, and 6 questions for participants' profiles. The items can be found in Table 1, whereas the complete questionnaire in English and Chinese are available in Appendices A and B, respectively.

Measures
In part one, the participants responded to the two screening questions that asked them to write down the place of their current residence and mark if they had ever watched fansub videos.
Viewers' attitudes toward fansub online courses were measured using a five-point semantic differential scale (harmful-beneficial, unpleasant-pleasant, bad-good, worthless-valuable, and unenjoyable-enjoyable). The scale was adapted from Ajzen (2006), exhibiting acceptable internal consistency. A higher score indicates more favorable attitudes toward fansub videos.
Viewers' attitude toward sponsors was operationalized on a scale comprising three items adapted from Maricic et al. (2019). Responses were provided on a five-point Likert scale ranging from "strongly disagree" (1) to "strongly agree" (5). A higher score indicates a more favorable attitude toward sponsors and sponsorship. The three scales have relatively high internal consistency.
The multiple dimensions of attitudes toward sponsorship were measured (attitudes toward fansub videos before sponsorship, attitudes toward sponsors before sponsorship, fit between sponsors and fansub videos, sincerity of sponsorship, commercialization of fansub videos, and overall attitudes toward sponsorship), each using two items (adapted from Lee et al., 1997;Olson, 2010). The final score was calculated separately for each scale. A higher score on each subscale indicated a more favorable attitude toward a specific segment of sponsorship.  (2006) Attitude toward sponsorship

Presponsor attitude
(1) I think that the sponsors of fansub online courses have a good reputation.
(2) I think that the sponsors of fansub online courses have a positive profile.
(3) I can recommend the sponsors of fansub online courses.
Olson (2010) (1) I think that online courses translated by fansub groups have a good reputation.
(2) I think that online courses translated by fansub groups have a positive profile. Fit (1) There is a logical connection between the sponsor and fansub online courses.
(2) It makes sense to me that those companies sponsor fansub online courses. Sincerity (1) I feel that the reason the companies sponsor fansub groups translating online courses is that brands believe they deserve support.
(2) I feel that the sponsors have the best interest of fansub online courses at heart. Commercialization (1) I feel the commercialization level of fansub online courses brought by sponsors is acceptable for me.
(2) I feel that the fansub online courses are not overcommercialized.

Overall attitude
(1) My feeling about companies' sponsoring of fansub online courses is good.
(2) My feeling about companies' sponsoring of fansub online courses is positive.
(3) My feeling about companies' sponsoring of fansub online courses is favorable.
Olson (2010) Attitude toward sponsors (1) I have a positive feeling toward the sponsors of fansub online courses due to their sponsorship.
(2) I have a good image of the sponsors of fansub online courses due to their sponsorship.
(3) I liked the sponsors of fansub online courses more than ever due to their sponsorship. The Cronbach's alpha values for attitude toward online courses (5 items), attitude toward sponsorship (14 items), and attitude toward the sponsor (5 items) were 0.85, 0.90, and 0.83, respectively (see, Table 2).
In the final part of the questionnaire, six questions were asked regarding participants' profiles, including gender, age, level of education, occupation, monthly income, and frequency of usage. The expected age range was between 18 and 45 years, whereas income groups were measured in categories aligned with the National Bureau of Statistics of China (2019). These variables were used dominantly to describe the sample.

Procedure
We obtained ethical approval from the Communication Management Program Committee at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, to conduct this research and waived to get the approval from the Institution Research Board as this research was part of the study in the curriculum and had gone through several research and academic-related committees to ensure that the ethical standard was not compromised.
The questionnaire was distributed on the forum page of the YYeTs fansub group's website, which focused on translating online courses. Permission to share the invitation was obtained from the website administrator. Incentives (stationary worth approximately 30 Thai Baths-USD 1) were provided to 40 random participants who completed the questionnaire. After reading the text of informed consent, which was written on the landing page of the questionnaire, participants who agreed with the conditions of participation accessed the main questionnaire. On the basis of a cross-sectional research design, a quantitative approach was employed to collect data in this study. We used quantitative instead of qualitative approaches as our goal was to test hypotheses and complex relationships rather than their development. In addition, the quantitative approach provides results that are easy to compare across groups and useful for future meta-analyses. Participants who resided outside mainland China or had never watched a fansub online course, as well as those who completed the questionnaire in less than 1 min, were omitted from the analysis under the presumption of careless responses. The remaining 216 persons who made up the final sample were subjected to the presented analyses.
The participants agreed with the statements that the sponsors of fansub online courses have a good reputation (mean = 3.63; SD = 0.83) and positive profile (mean = 3.76; SD = 0.92), and they can recommend the sponsors (mean = 3.67; SD = 1.04). In addition, they agreed that online courses translated by fansub groups have a good reputation (mean = 3.95; SD = 0.81) and positive profile (mean = 4.02; SD = 0.77). Most participants agreed that there was a logical connection between sponsors and fansub online courses (mean = 3.84; SD = 0.82), it made sense that those companies sponsor fansub online courses (mean = 3.90; SD = 0.84), they felt that the reason companies sponsor fansub groups translating online courses is that brands believe that they deserve to be supported (mean = 4.01; SD = 0.84), sponsors have the best interest of fansub online courses at heart (mean = 3.83; SD = 0.92), the commercialization level of fansub online courses brought by sponsors is acceptable for me (mean = 4.01; SD = 0.76), and the fansub online courses are not overcommercialized (mean = 3.75; SD = 0.85). Further, they agreed that their feelings regarding companies' sponsoring of fansub online courses were good (mean = 4.01; SD = 0.77), positive (mean = 4.09; SD = 0.85), and favorable (mean = 3.98; SD = 0.85) (see , Table 4).
Most participants agreed that owing to sponsorship, they have a positive attitude toward the sponsors of online fansub courses (mean = 3.80; SD = 0.86) and a good image of the sponsors  (mean = 3.78; SD = 0.92) and that they liked the sponsors more than ever (mean = 3.69; SD = 0.98) (see, Table 5).
The means and medians presented in Table 6 are all approximately four on a one-to-five scale, suggesting that participants generally expressed favorable attitudes toward videos, sponsors, and sponsorship. This was additionally tested using one-sample t-tests to compare if the obtained means significantly differed from a specific value (Gerald, 2018). In this study, the theoretical midpoint of the scale (value 3, indicating that participants neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement) was selected as the specific value against which the observed means were compared. According to Gerald (2018), the test has two assumptions, namely, the independence of observations and normality of response distribution to criteria, although the latter assumption can be relaxed when sample sizes are not small (see, Lumley et al., 2002).
The results showed that the true mean of attitudes toward videos (t (215) 3.94, 4.12]) is greater than 3 (which represents the midpoint of the scale with neutral meaning) and usually approximately 4. In general, this implies that participants generally had positive attitudes toward videos, sponsors, and sponsorship.
After presenting the attitudes toward videos, sponsors, and sponsorship among participants, the relationships between variables were estimated using Pearson's correlation coefficient. Pearson's coefficient is a common measure of association between two variables with a standardized range (from −1 to 1), which is fairly robust to non-normal distributions of participants' scores on studied variables (Havlicek & Peterson, 1977). Next, to estimating the magnitude of the relationship, in line with other parametric approaches, the coefficient also allows testing the probability of that magnitude occurring randomly given the sample size. As such, it represents an easy-tounderstand and widely accepted measure of association, which motivated us to include it in our analytical approach. The findings (Table 7) suggest that all relationships are positive and are of moderate intensity, implying that participants who have more favorable attitudes toward fansub videos on average also have more favorable attitudes toward sponsors and sponsorship.

Discussion
First, this study yielded multiple relevant findings. In line with the first hypothesis, we established that the audience who had experience with fansub videos generally had positive attitudes toward them. This agrees with the popularity of online courses (Netease, 2019) and the focus on education among Chinese citizens (EU SME Center, 2014). This finding was established using two measures of attitudes toward fansub videos (before sponsorship and after sponsorship), which provides an additional argument in favor of their robustness.
Second, we established that the audience generally has positive opinions on sponsorship: high ratings were observed in the context of fit between sponsors and fansub videos, their sincerity, and commercialization. In other words, the audience does not perceive fansub videos as overcommercialized and generally has positive opinions on sponsoring such videos.
Similarly, we established positive attitudes toward the sponsors of fansub videos, fulfilling the theoretical circle of related phenomena. As Martensen et al. (2007) explained, positive attitudes toward events can be transferred into positive attitudes toward the sponsors, indicating that sponsors can benefit from sponsoring specific events that invoke positive emotions. Our findings partially supported the claim that there were relationships of moderate to strong magnitude between attitudes toward objects, sponsorship, and sponsors. Only the part involving defining causal relationships was not supported. Unfortunately, owing to our research design, the research could not estimate which of the three attitudes represents a cause or consequence. Notably, Gwinner's (1997) image transfer model and the notions highlighted by Martensen et al. (2007) are not contradictory; the human mind constantly makes associations to enhance its opportunities to adapt to the environment (Hagoort, 2020). This implies that meaning-making is more likely to be a two-directional approach if both objects and sponsors already have the meaning assigned (Boronczyk & Breuer, 2020;Predergast et al., 2016).
On the basis of our findings, sponsorship as a form of making a connection between products and sponsors could serve as a means of modifying pre-existing perceptions of products and sponsors rather than creating a new one. Therefore, to empirically evaluate models, it seems inevitable to study whether and how famous brand sponsorship changes the perception of previously unknown products, as well as whether and how the sponsorship of well-known products by unknown brands changes the perception of that brand. This has been confirmed by several scholars (Cobbs & Groza, 2020;Yoo & Jin, 2015). This study provides arguments in favor of such a presumption in the context of sponsoring fansub videos, although additional studies are required to empirically evaluate the hypothesized relationships.
Moreover, this study provides arguments in favor of using sponsorship as a marketing tool. Kwon and Shin (2020) showed that exposure time plays a pivotal role in image transfer. Yoo and Jin (2015) highlighted that the fit between products and sponsors is imperative in the process. Therefore, although it could be considered that fansub videos represent great vessels for image transfer due to the ability to continuously expose the audience to brand logos while discussing issues that the audience considers relevant, other factors defining the relationship between sponsors and sponsored products should also be considered.
This study also has implications for e-learning. We know that satisfaction with learning materials is a determinant of academic achievement (Leal-Rodriguez & Albort-Morant, 2019; Sahin & Yilmaz, 2020). Moreover, the findings of this study highlighted the positive public opinion on fansub online courses. Therefore, it seems like fansub online courses are perceived as a valuable addition to the conventional teaching practices, with the additional benefits of being flexible with respect to time and location due to their on-demand and online characteristics. Even if sponsored, the public likes such courses, which may increase engagement with study materials and more successful dissemination of knowledge. Notably, this also means that the audience does not perceive sponsored adverts as distractions that substantially undermine their learning process, indicating that under the presumption of high-quality translation, the translated courses, even when sponsored, should not underperform the original courses. Therefore, fansubbing contents publicly available without infringement of authors' rights could help in disseminating knowledge among broad audiences, especially individuals who could not access such materials because of language barriers. Outside the context of fansub videos, these findings suggest that the public generally holds favorable opinions on online courses, which is unsurprising as each individual can choose courses he/she like. Therefore, it could be treated as another (indirect) argument in favor of transferring course materials online to make them accessible to a wide audience.

Limitations of this study
Multiple limitations should be considered while interpreting the outcomes of this study. First, this study was correlational, indicating that no causal inferences should be drawn. Second, the participants in this study were followers of a single group that created fansub videos. Third, we did not create specific groups of participants with respect to the contents of educational fansub videos that they watched, which could affect our results. Therefore, the validity of generalizing our findings on the relationship between attitudes toward videos, sponsorships, and sponsors produced by other fansub groups is probably undermined. The method of recruitment holds another potential source of bias-only those approving specific content might have followed a specific website and published fansub videos. In other words, individuals with experience with fansub videos that did not like this experience might have unsubscribed from their contents. Therefore, such individuals might not have been sufficiently represented in our sample. This implies that our estimate may primarily serve as an "educated guess" rather than a precise estimate of public attitudes toward fansub videos. Thus, more studies on representative samples would be required to estimate the validity of generalizing our findings.

Recommendations for future research
First, this study should be tested on a larger group of samples with more balanced gender diversity. These could be achieved using quota sampling. According to Yamane (1967), when the sampling error is 5%, the sample size should be 400. Moreover, the sampling error of this study was 7%, and the sampling size was estimated to be 200.
Second, future research should investigate the relationship between attitudes toward sponsors of fansub videos and consumers' purchase intention of the sponsor brand. Although the relationship was proven to be positive in the context of sports sponsorship by several scholars (Kim et al., 2011;Lee & Cho, 2009), the relationship in the context of fansub videos should be studied further, especially using more representative samples.
The third suggestion is to investigate the meaning of the transfer model's moderators, namely, the similarity (fit), level of sponsorship, frequency of sponsorship, and product involvement in the context of fansub courses. The indicators of fit and usage frequency in this study generated positive results. However, the level of sponsorship and product involvement remains unclear. There is the versatility of potential sponsors of online fansub videos. The image transfer model (Gwinner, 1997) suggests that the more exclusive the level of sponsorship is, the more effective is the image transfer between a sponsored entity and the sponsor brand. Therefore, precise content analysis is recommended to compare the level of sponsorship for different brands. In addition, conducting qualitative research to clarify the reason viewers have a favorable attitude toward the sponsorship and sponsor of fansub videos is recommended. The clarifications could provide further and more profound implications to help brands and marketers maximize sponsorship effects.

Conclusion
This study provided one of the first scientific contributions to understanding the relationships between attitudes toward fansub videos, sponsors, and sponsorship as well as established moderate positive relationships between the three attitude variables. As such, it can serve as a starting point for future studies focusing either on obtaining populational estimates of attitudes toward fansub videos or on testing the exact mechanisms through which attitudes toward fansub videos are transferred to attitudes toward the sponsors of fansub videos. The established relationships provide a solid foundation for future research that could contribute to better marketing strategies.