Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2022

Keywords

Sports Journalism, Digital Journalism, Media Sociology, Interviews, Field Theory, Team Media

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479520979958

Abstract

Long trivialized as the “toy department,” sports journalism nevertheless represents an enduring, and vital subfield within journalism. As with many niches of journalism, sports journalism has needed to adjust to changes resulting from the technology of the field. In particular, digital sports journalism faces pressure from adjacent fields, represented in team and player media, which perform many of the same tasks historically attributed to sports journalism. Through the lens of field theory, the present study reports on long-form interviews with 47 sports journalists who self-defined their work as digital journalism. This study argues that the perception of insurgents—team media that prior research demonstrated is often seen as a part of the field—has caused digital sports journalists to view their work as economically vital to the individual newsroom, but not topically essential to the journalistic field at large.

Was this content written or created while at USF?

No

Citation / Publisher Attribution

Communication & Sport, v. 10, issue 36, p. 395-586

Perreault, G., & Bell, T. R., Towards a “Digital” Sports Journalism: Field Theory, Changing Boundaries and Evolving Technologies, Communication & Sport, 10(36), pp. 395-586. Copyright © 2022 by SAGE Publications.

The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479520979958.

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