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The current study explored factors influencing content sharing on Twitter in the context of sport news. It employed a 2-step text-based analysis combining qualitative and quantitative approaches and found that 3 main categories of factors are influencing retweeting decisions: characteristics of the source, characteristics of the message, and characteristics of the user. A subsequent hierarchical-regression analysis revealed that factors related to a user’s encounter of a Tweet are the best predictor of retweeting intentions. More specifically, interest in the exact topic of the tweet, the perceived relevance that the tweet might have for the user’s own followers, and similarity in opinion play important roles. Implications for communication practitioners, as well as research investigating human behavior on social media, are discussed.

Media scholars have primarily assessed journalistic role perceptions through the survey method. We propose conceptual and operational definitions for four role enactments observable through content analysis: dissemination, interpretative, adversarial, and mobilization. We also examined how journalistic role enactments in stories related to organization type (nonprofit and for-profit) and reporter workload. Results show that nonprofit journalists were more likely to include interpretation in stories, whereas for-profit journalists were more likely to enact the dissemination and mobilization roles. In addition, as reporter story number increases, it significantly predicted enacting the dissemination role, while suppressing the interpretative role, and especially the adversarial role enactment.

Social media have been said to rival traditional media in the realm of sports. Actual evidence for a change in consumption patterns, though, remains scarce. This study investigates college students’ use of multiple distribution systems in the context of sports. More specifically, the relative importance of Twitter in relation to television is assessed. In addition, variables potentially predicting a greater reliance on Twitter are analyzed. Results indicate that television remains the primary distribution system for sports and that the importance of Twitter might have been overstated. The use of social media does not diminish the consumption of traditional sports broadcasts but is positively correlated. Finally, results of a regression analysis find that a subset of individuals is more likely to rely on Twitter depending on their tendency to engage in parasocial interactions, their Twitter use patterns, and their perceived expertise in sports.