The Digital World of Sport

Sam Duncan

Description

How digital and social media have changed the sports media industry forever and their pivotal impact on the broader media industry

This book is about how new media, and in particular, digital and social media, has changed the world of sports forever. The way fans receive information, communicate and form communities now predominantly lives online. 

But perhaps even more significant is the evolution of the sports media industry, where digital media has impacted the broader media industry, stimulated new media organisations, changed old media organisations and altered old conventions of journalism in equal measure.

Drawing on the expertise of academics, scholars, experts and professionals at the forefront of the sports, media, and journalism fields, the book suggests that new media has turned the sports industry on its head with profound implications – both exciting and disturbing.

Introduction; 1. An Online World; 2. New Media, New Players; 3. New Ways of Watching Sport; 4. A Voice of Their Own; 5. Athletes as Activists; 6. Strained Relationships, Outrage, Anger and Emotion; 7. New Forms of Sports Journalism; 8. The Future of Sports Media: A New Reality; 9. Issues and Implications for Journalism in the Digital World; Conclusion; References; Index.

Sujets

• History of sport
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 28 septembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785275074
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Digital World of Sport
The Digital World of Sport
The Impact of Emerging Media on Sports News, Information and Journalism
Sam Duncan
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2020
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA
Copyright © Sam Duncan 2020
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941010
ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-505-0 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78527-505-4 (Hbk)
This title is also available as an e-book.
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. An Online World
2. New Media, New Players
3. New Ways of Watching Sport
4. A Voice of Their Own
5. Athletes as Activists
6. Strained Relationships, Outrage, Anger and Emotion
7. New Forms of Sports Journalism
8. The Future of Sports Media: A New Reality
9. Issues and Implications for Journalism in the Digital World
Conclusion
References
Index
INTRODUCTION
It was the late Australian journalist Les Carlyon who, when referring to the troubles of modern journalism, said:

Sloppy writing and editing, advocacy masquerading as reporting, gossip masquerading as reporting, stories that abound in loose ends and clichés, stories that are half-right, stories that insult the reader’s intelligence. (Carlyon 2005 )
Known for his love of storytelling, Carlyon’s unique way with words and his unwavering belief that ‘if you get the words right, the rest – the profits, the circulation, the ads – will come to you’, lamented the turn the profession he had dedicated his life to was taking in the new, disruptive online world (Carlyon 2005 ).
Aged in his 60s with 40 years of experience when he made his observations about modern journalism, Carlyon was an old-school journalist, valuing the written word, its power, detail and correctness far more than the way it was packaged. For Carlyon, if a story were skilfully crafted and written, it would not need sensationalism to sell. Rather, it would be a sensational story.
His other great love was sport, in particular horse racing. He wrote extensively about the ‘sport of kings’, its characters – heroes and villains – and how they reflect the society in which they exist.
But as we entered the digital world, Carlyon rightly sensed that disruption was upon us. Online news was different than newspapers. Social media was different again. New, digital-only organisations were popping up, attracting advertising revenues and pushing out content to its online consumers at a far more rapid pace than anything Carlyon had previously seen (Carlyon 2005 ).
For Carlyon, this disruption was also disturbing. It had compromised the art of storytelling, the time taken to investigate important news and the depth of thought-provoking analysis. Journalists were rushed, stretched, lacking curiosity and too often appealing to the lowest common denominator to generate clicks.
Yet, for all his pessimism and concern for the direction journalism and news reporting were headed, Carlyon knew there was no going back. Quoting Jack Nicholson’s character from Chinatown , Carlyon once remarked: ‘I don’t want to live in the past – it’s just that I don’t want to lose it’ (Carlyon 2005 ).
Of course, even if you disagree with Carlyon’s concerns about modern journalism, it is indisputable that the world of digital media has transformed the media industry and everything within – the organisations, the professions, the people. But more than that, it has also transformed other powerful industries, including sports industries around the world. Carlyon used to marvel at how sport resonated with people because the games of a nation, and the issues within it, would tell the people something relevant and relatable about themselves.
This fact may still be accurate, but the sports, the storytellers and the platforms we use to connect with sport and each other are all different. Today, a teenager in Sydney can watch a National Basketball Association (NBA) game in New York on his mobile phone while chatting to fellow fans who might be in London, Paris, Tokyo or Los Angeles. Furthermore, a fan can follow live blogs from a superfan based in Chicago who is offering expert analysis or opinion or even breaking news.
Fans might then watch post-match analysis programs or player interviews via the NBA website or YouTube channels of the competing teams. If fans only want shorter, punchier highlight packages, they might simply refer to Facebook or Twitter. For the reactions from the athlete who scored the winning goal, fans can go straight to the source, with the athlete tweeting to millions of fans only seconds after the game finishes.
The options are ubiquitous and, mostly, digital. The reality is, the sports fan can now consume hours upon hours of sports-related content, including watching live games, without interacting with a traditional or mainstream news outlet even once.
The consequences of this change have been profound – for global sports, the fans and communities that support them and, in particular, the media that report and comment on them. The sports markets are now more cluttered as fans in one country turn their attention to sports overseas, which previously went unseen. The media industry, too, is increasingly dynamic, with old media conventions and business models turned on their heads. Newspapers, radio stations and television networks have converged, and digital-only websites, specialising in niche content, are attracting both consumers and advertisers, leaving some traditional news outlets on their knees.
Sports-related content is churned out at an increasingly rapid pace in an attempt to meet the unquenchable thirst of consumers who crave and expect regular, interesting, valuable content whenever they pick up their phones to check what’s trending on social media. To be heard or seen or to simply stand out from the crowd, content creators and news organisations alike have adopted a range of tactics, many of which had Carlyon shaking his head in dismay. The content is often packaged, popularised and, worse, sensationalised. How else are they expected to attract consumers to their content in such a cluttered, competitive, crowded market?
And, in an age of fragmented audiences and advertising revenue, journalists and content creators are now often working in under-resourced newsrooms to shorter and shorter deadlines, which has fundamentally changed the type, tone and even quality of the news cycle. These issues are discussed and explored extensively in this book, using a range of academic studies, sports-related examples and, importantly, the insights of sports media professionals and sports fans.
The Study of Sports Media
This study is both important and unique. While a significant body of work focusing on the sports media industry and, more particularly, sports journalism exists, few scholars have provided an in-depth analysis of how digital and social media have transformed the sports media industry, its traditional norms, culture, business models and professional practices. The existing body of work, while significant, falls short of examining the disruption caused by digital media and the subsequent challenges and opportunities that confront the sports media industry. Interestingly, much of the analysis about sports journalism comes from scholars and academics more aligned to the field of media and communications than journalism. Yet, most of these critical texts are far more skewed towards discussing the sports journalist rather than the broader industry and the various and varied players within it (Rowe 1992 , 1995 , 1999 , 2004, 2005 ; Whannel 1992 , 2002 ; Blain and O’Donnell 1998 ; Wenner 1998 ; Boyle and Haynes 2000 , 2004 ; Brookes 2002 ; Beirnstein and Blain 2003). Generally, the prevailing sentiment among the many researchers who have studied the field of sports journalism is that the profession is at a crossroads or, more damning, that it has become a mere shadow of its best self (Franklin 1997 ; Sparks and Tulloch 2000 ; Hargreaves 2003 ; Campbell 2004 ; Kettle 2004 ; Lloyd 2004 ; Marr 2004 ; Allan 2005 ).
Regularly, the research has focused on the role sports and sports journalism play in society – from influencing national identity, reinforcing cultural norms, helping illuminate or espouse ideology or even ideological myths, connecting with political and economic structures and reflecting critical discourses concerning race, gender and ethnicity (Blain et al. 1993 ; O’Donnell 1994 ; Garland and Rowe 1999 ; Alabarces et al. 2001 ; Crolley and Hand 2002 ; Boyle and Monteiro 2005 ; Hand and Crolley 2005 ). More often than not, this research has focused on the print journalist and, on fewer occasions, the television reporter (Salwen and Garrison 1998 ). These texts also discuss the tensions between the print writer and radio and t