Digital literacy capabilities and curriculum design in sport management programmes

Abstract

Digital technologies are responsible for some of the largest changes of our era – both in leisure and in work. The on-going digital disruption and demand for digital skills is creating significant impact, and bringing benefits and opportunities, for businesses globally. From the local community level to elite professional sport, technology advances have changed both on-field and off-field performance. The increasing digitisation of sport business operations has increased the demand for digital skills in the sport sector workforce. As such, it is critical for employability that graduates from higher education (HE) sport management programmes, have developed digital literacy competencies. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the integration of digital literacy into HE curriculum in the field of sport management. This chapter, first, discusses and defines the concept of digital literacy and then draws on a framework that includes three inter-connected technical, cognitive, and socio-emotional skill areas to discuss digital literacy requirements of the sport industry and, thus, of the HE sport management curriculum.