The Impact of the Digital Transformation on Sports Journalism Talk Online

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper examines the impact of the digital transformation on broadcast practices from a producer/studio participant perspective with a focus on sports journalism online. More specifically, the study targets changes in sports talk and interaction as producers re-shape their communicative activities to fit audiences’ new contexts of reception. It discusses how these changes in practices relate to some of the fundamental assumptions in current broadcast talk theory. The textual studies are complemented by interviews with six prominent Swedish media industry representatives in order to shed light on their perceptions of the broadcast to online shift given their respective experiences. The results show how producers/participants adapt to a more casual and relaxed interactional style and tone online than in ordinary broadcasting. The studied sportscasts also largely abandon the traditional broadcast address, as expressed in direct discursive address and looks-to-camera, for an orientation to screen devices where social media active audiences are to be “found,” although still having a traditionally positioned audience to attend to. Although sociability is still the structural principle for producers’ interactional choices irrelevant of platform, the strategies of how to achieve it are changing due to the digital transformation.