The internet has been considered as a threat to traditional media, prompting traditional media players to invest online to defend their core business. According to Sindile Gubedu , people are more addicted in digital media compared to the print media. The rapid increase in digital media usage has led to a decrease in the popularity of other media sources especially the print media, during the last few years in many developed countries. People are more connected to the internet through the digital media and have ignored the traditional media because they think it is too slow for them to get the quicker information.
Relationship between Sports Journalists and Athletes
The scope of interactivity between sports journalists and athletes have widened in the recent years. Previously, only land phones and emails were available whenever a journalist wanted to interact with any sports celebrity. Now-a-days, any time, the journalists or even the celebrities can interact and share views with the help of social media network. With Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter – no doubt, the interactivity level has widened to a great extent. Athletes used to be the most privacy protected celebrity figures but those days have come to an end.
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A major challenge for conventional newspapers is to familiarize you to the rising number of digital media and the constant shift of readers to the web for news. The rise of bloggers and civic journalists has also posed enough challenge for the traditional journalists.
The fact that the ample can also use these media tools to create sports content has fuelled fears that internet may make out of date the habitual role of sports journalists. Social media scholars like Mathilda (2004), Katz (2006), Mcquail (2005), Pateno and Burnett (2006), allege that the new social media can push the old media into oblivion. They contend that journalism as a profession seems to be threatened as the public allegedly adopts the role of journalists, bridging the professional sphere with those of amateurs.
According to Banda (2010), many broadcasters now provoke ordinary people to become journalist and persuade them to send video images which the broadcaster transmits. This is a intimidation to professionalism deliberate citizens have not acquired journalistic skills, hence referring to them as amateurs is justified.
Globalization, digitization and marketisation have brought extensive changes in the media organizations, which are reshuffle their brand of reporting to keep up with the changes.
―With the demands on time and possessions sports journalists and journalists in general ever more find that the internet has become an significant source for information. Not only does this procedure of data gathering involve you to maintain the journalistic rigour of inspection material that appears on the web for its exactness, but also this reliance on the web, can habitually be at the outflow of getting out of the office and speaking with people.
Sports Journalism in Print Media
Sports journalism is much more than the ―model box or ―sand box of the newsroom. Sports journalism in recent times, have immense abilities of transcending cultures and societies. Sports journalism has adopted a comprehensive language that brings a constant and firm common ground. Sports are perceptibly how professionals in their particular sport, make their bread and butter, but that bread may be getting a bit molded for those that information on sports. To avoid this molding or endure through it, journalists must prepare themselves for the fresh, new brand of bread. That research may comprise m any ever-changing things, but the most important thing is being willing and able to adapt to the changes.
Study Objectives:
- To understand the role of sports journalists in print media with the advent of digital media.
- To understand whether there is any language change in sports journalism of print media with the penetration of internet.
Methodology
This study is a combination of both Audience Survey and Textual Analysis. As part of the survey sports journalists from print media were sent a questionnaire and the response from the 100 respondents was considered for analysis.
Additionally, Textual Analysis was done focusing on the coverage of two of the biggest sporting event
– Football World Cup (2014 vs 2018) and Cricket World Cup (2015 vs 2019) across two eras by three national dailies, namely The Times of India, The Hindustan Time and The Indian Express. The study aims to understand the impact of internet on the language on the sports text.
This study thus employs both quantitative method of audience survey and the qualitative method of textual analysis to understand the impact of internet on the role of a sports journalist and change in language of sports stories respectively.
The headlines in this study have been analyzed in terms of linguistic devices also like presupposition. Taking the newspaper headlines as a kind of persuasive writing, these devices are of special importance in that they enhance the effect of persuasion.
Findings
Varying apart from sports journalists in digital period in this segment, the researcher tries to respond the subsequent points with the help of the below tables:
- Are sports journalists becoming external due to the regular existence of internet and reliant on net?
- How the journalists do features challenges posed by internet?
Table No.1
Do you think that the understanding of sports and their rules have gone down among journalists because of real-time updates of scores in the websites?
Sl. No. Answers Total number of respondents out of 100 Percentage %
- Yes 10 10
- No 80 80%
- DN/CS1 10 10%
- Total 100 100%
Table No.2
Do you think the easily available information in internet has made the sports journalist lazy and superficial?
Sl. No. Answers Total number of respondents out of 100 Percentage %
- Yes 35 35%
- No 65 65%
- DN/CS 10 10%
- Total 100 100%
Table No.3:
Do you think sports journalists are under pressure like never before and face the challenge of offering something new to readers who have seen the action live given that new media offers live coverage of almost all sports around the world?
Sl. No. Answers Total number of respondents out of 100 Percentage %
- Yes 75 75%
- No 20 20%
- DN/CS 5 5%
- Total 100 100%
Table No.4:
Do you think the role of sports journalist as a mediator between the fans and the sports personalities is on a down swing?
Sl. No. Answers Total number of respondents out of 100 Percentage %
- Yes 45 45%
- No 55 55%
- DN/CS 5 5%
- Total 100 100%
Table No.5:
Do you think in the digital age sports Journalists no more set the agenda and is done by the sports persons themselves with the help of social media websites?
Sl. No. Answers Total number of respondents out of 100 Percentage %
- Yes 40 40%
- No 55 55%
- DN/CS 5 5%
- Total 100 100%
This segment tries to recognize how the responsibility of a sports journalist has changed in the internet age in terms of the understanding the game, basis building, agenda setting and what sort of challenges that Indian scribes face and if the sports journalists are losing their significance.
The above tables make it adequately clear that despite the spoon-feeding by Internet and Televisions in the shape of live streaming and commentary, almost all sports journalists consider that it has not affected their acquaintance and understanding of the sports and they are more than happy to go out in the field than face the sport from the comfort of their office cubicles with high speed internet.
Most journalists don‘t think that social media has helped them to grow their sources and acquaintances. Despite incidents of a few breaking news on social media sites such as Twitter, they firmly consider that they are still setting the agenda and hold a strong position as a mediator involving in the fans and the sports personalities. The respondents were almost undivided in agreeing that they are facing immense pressure to dig out something new in the times of internet which brings the sports events to the audience with a click of the mouse. However, despite the challenge, at least 60 per cent of the respondents still believe sports journalists in India won‘t lose their relevance in the next 20 years.
Conclusion
The researcher establish that in spite of the excess of information in internet, almost all sports journalists consider that it has not affected their knowledge and perceptive of the sports and they are additional than pleased to go out in the field than wrap the sport from the console of their office cubicles with the help of high speed internet.
Most journalists do not judge that social media has helped them to develop their sources and links. Despite of incidents a few breaking news on social media sites such as twitter, they confidently believe that they hold a tough position as a intermediary between the fans and the sports personalities. They were almost undisputed in approving that they are facing massive stress to dig out something new in the times of live streaming and interpretation in internet.
The character of a sports journalist is undergoing a severe change in urbanized countries such as USA, UK, and Australia and there is a wind of change in India too as the response of the sports journalists in the review suggests. But the fear of becoming inappropriate sports journalists in the next 20 years has not yet touched most journalists in India.
The textual investigation of the prominent headlines considered from the three national papers – Times of India, Hindustan times and Indian express, shows an detonation of creativeness in the language. The use of alliteration, idioms, adjectives and references to films and literature show how sports journalists are using creative language tools to compete with the 24-hour news media.
However, it can‘t be deprived of that there is also a surfacing of influential technique that leans towards sensationalism in the language used to cover up the cricket and football world cup in the given years. The use of words such as ‗bury‘, ‗vengeance‘, ‗strike‘, ‗assault ‘in the headlines shows the attention-grabbing tactics used by the traditional newspapers, which are measured ―gravely in publications.
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