Richard  Haynes  Stirling  Media  Research  Institute,    University  of  Stirling,  Scotland,  UK.  

     ‘The  process  has  become  the  product.’  Jeff  Jarvis,  What  Would  Google  Do?  (2009:92)  

¡  Struggles  for  continuity:  some  critical  thoughts  on  sports  journalism  and  social  network  media  

¡  Transformations  in  media-­‐source  relations  in  sport:  §  Shaping  the  news  agenda  

§  The  public  ‘private’  athlete  

¡  A  new  conversation  inside  social  networks  between  journalists,  sports  stars  and  fans  

¡  Concluding  thoughts  on  sports  strategic  communications  

¡  Journalism  and  social  networks  critically  framed  in  two  ways:  1.  Convergence  –  digital  technology,  

organisations  and  institutions,  media  practices  and  everyday  life  

2.  What  is  journalism?  And  who  is  a  journalist?  

¡  Sport  stars  and  disintermediation  §  Mass  self-­‐communication  §  Rioferdy5  

¡  Access  to  information  no  longer  resides  with  the  occupation  of  journalists    

¡  Decline  of  newspaper  circulations  ¡  Heightened  competition  for  attention  ¡  Search  engines  and  their  algorithms  

increasingly  provide  our  hierarchy  of  news  

¡  ‘Churnalism’  –  PR  and  spin  ¡  Access  to  sport  stars  in  broadcasting  is  

routinized  and  sanitized  

¡  24/7  rolling  news    ¡  Twitter  as  news  feed  

§  10m  users  in  UK  §  80%  via  mobile  

¡  Capello  Resignation  §  Story  broke  on  Twitter  §  4000  tweets  a  second  §  Star  comment  and  ‘Trending’  

 

¡  Social  networking  and  the  athlete  as  ‘brand’  §  Likes  and  followers,  what  do  they  mean?  

§  Issues  of  integrity  

¡  Discipline  and  guidelines  §  Fines  and  sackings  §  Need  for  media  literacy  education  

After   years   of   interviews,   it   became  clear  than  no  journalist  was  willing  to  tell  my  tale.  Anything  I  said,  anything  I  did,  was  given  an  angle  to  fit  in  with  the   bad-­‐boy   image.   [   ]   I   was   an  enigma.   [   ]  They   projected   someone  who  was   not   the   real  me:   it  was   the  me  that   the  press  wanted   to  project.  [   ]   No   longer   would   I   let   journalistic  interpretation  to  run  wild  without  any  accountability.   I   didn’t   have   many  choices   I   decided   to   tweet!   (Barton,  2012).    

•  Cites  Neitsche  and  The  Smiths  in  equal  measure.  

•  Enduring  negative  public  image.  

•  Public  row  with  former  players  on  Twitter.  

•  The  participatory  surveillance  of  a  footballer.  

¡  Criticisms  of  social  media  use  by  sport  stars  §  From  journalists  (a  struggle  for  communication  power)  

§  From  within  sport  (fear  the  lack  of  control)  §  A  need  for  social  media  literacy  in  sport  §  The  need  for  informed,  well-­‐funded  journalism