Twitter’s diffusion in sports journalism: Role models, laggards and followers of the social media innovation

Abstract

The roles of sports journalists have been affected considerably by the influence of Twitter, but what is not known is how the social media application has been adopted across a range of sports newsrooms in different countries. Employing Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory, this study examines how Twitter has been accepted or rejected on the sports desks of six broadsheet/quality news organisations in Australia, India and the United Kingdom. A mixed methods approach is employed, combining 36 in-depth interviews with a content analysis of 4103 print and online articles. This allows a comprehensive analysis of issues such as when and why sports journalists adopt this innovation, and how much Twitter-related content appears in the sports pages. Twitter adoption contains many benefits for individuals and their organisations, and the results from this study have implications for sports journalism in other nations at various stages of diffusion.

Twitter and sports journalism in Germany: Application and networks during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

“…The majority of sports journalists in Germany agrees that athletes" social media use has made it more difficult to provide news exclusively, yet 87.5 percent of these journalists gather information by following actors from the field of sports (Nölleke et al, 2017). English (2016) compared the acceptance of Twitter by sports desks in Australia, India, and the United Kingdom. He combined a content analysis of more than 4100 print and online articles with 36 in-depth interviews.…”

“…Twitter adoption has been most common in the UK sports reporting where 8.0% of all articles included Twitter material. It seemed "evident, that cultural and commercial aspects of the respective nations" media systems impact on rates of adoption" (English, 2016).…”

Indian sports journalism’s early online steps in web-first publishing

“…In India, sport has been ranked behind internal politics in terms of story volume in newspapers (Karan, 2006;Shoemaker & Cohen, 2006). Specific research into sports journalism has been undertaken in relation to content in India (English, 2013), as well as in comparative studies (English, 2014;Horky & Nieland, 2013). By publishing results and attracting readers, sports journalism plays a major role in disseminating information.…”

Twitter e información política en la prensa digital: la red social como fuente de declaraciones en la era Trump

“…Estudios recientes apuntan a Twitter como uno de los canales habituales que los periodistas utilizan para monitorizar sus fuentes (Heravi;Harrower, 2016;English, 2016; Engesser; Humprecht, 2015; Pérez-Soler; Micó, 2015). Sin embargo, varios de esos trabajos concluyen que la utilización de tweets como declaraciones en la elaboración de noticias es algo más habitual en la prensa sensacionalista o en las secciones periodísticas llamadas "blandas" (soft) que en la prensa de calidad o en las noticias llamadas "duras" (hard) (Broersma;Graham, 2013;Paulussen;Harder, 2014).…”