Sports journalists in the digital age

The study explores what it means to be a professional sports journalist in the digital age and how the mainstream media are safeguarding their privileged and dominant role in society. The term ‘sports journalism’ has developed elasticity as the emergence of blogging has meant a growth in alternative journalism while sports organisations and clubs now employ in-house ‘journalists’. Also, mainstream media companies now recruit online-only sports journalists on the sports desk – where do they fit into historical notions of what constitutes occupational status, identity and practice? This study requires the perspectives of sports journalists working for mainstream media as they are considered to constitute membership of the occupational group.

sports journalism in digital age

Project timeframe

The research commenced in 2013 and is ongoing.

Project aims

The two key aims of this project are to:

  • explore how sports journalists are protecting their professional base in a ‘democratised’ digital media environment
  • investigate what it means to be a professional sports journalist in the digital age.

Project findings and impact

The findings of the project are informing and shaping industry practice. Simon McEnnis co-ordinates a 20-session staff development training course for Sky Sports journalists and disseminates his research findings in this forum.

The key findings to date are that sports journalists are facing significant internal and external challenges to their professional and occupational bases.

Sports journalists face external challenges in that they are now one of many voices in public communication alongside clubs, organisations, non-mainstream media and bloggers. However, sports journalists are proving resilient and adaptable in operating within a shared digital environment. Sports journalists are leaning heavily on their occupational mythology and cultural authority, built predominantly around access to the wider professional sports environment, to dominate participatory online spaces such as social media.

Internally, the occupational group has become more complex and fragmented due to both newsroom re-organisation and multi-platform editorial strategies. Sports journalism has always been characterised by tensions across publications through quality versus popular dichotomies. However, the introduction of online journalists into sports desks has seen tensions and hierarchies arise within – as well as across – organisations. The print, newspaper tradition has a clear set of norms, values and beliefs that contribute to its status as ‘proper’ sports journalism while online practitioners are viewed as undermining professional standards and reputation.

Articles in The Conversation

Research team

Output

Research publications

McEnnis, Simon (2016) Digital Journalism. ISSN 2167-0811

McEnnis, Simon (2015) Journalism Practice, 10 (8). pp. 967-982. ISSN 1751-2786

McEnnis, Simon (2013) International Journal of Sport Communication, 6 (4). pp. 423-433. ISSN 1936-3915

Journalism publications

McEnnis, Simon (2017) The Conversation

McEnnis, Simon (2015) The Conversation, 12 February.

McEnnis, Simon (2014) The Conversation, 12 December.

McEnnis, Simon (2014) The Conversation, 2 September.

McEnnis, Simon (2014) The Conversation, 17 July.

Conference presentations

Toy department within the Toy Department? The Occupational Status of Online Sports Journalists, Hastings Research Seminar, November 2017

Following the action: An exploration of professional ideology and practice of U.K. live sports bloggers at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport conference in Portland, USA, in November 2014.

Raising our game: Impact of citizen journalism on Twitter on professional sports journalism at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport conference in Quebec City, Canada, in November 2013

Partners