Digital Leadership on Twitter: The Digital Leadership Roles of Sports Journalists on Twitter

Abstract

This study aims to demonstrate the digital leadership roles of Turkish sports journalists on Twitter individually and institutionally. During the Post Covid-19 pandemic process, journalists from institutional newspapers gained more active visibility, particularly on Twitter. Unlike traditional leadership roles, digital leadership is measured more within the context of interconnected relationships with followers and interactions on Twitter. Along with engaging followers on Twitter and attempting to address their interests and needs, sports journalists also compile their institutional and personal opinions and post them on Twitter. For this reason, in the present study, we analyzed the Twitter accounts of five well-known sports journalists actively engaged in Turkey and their institutional newspapers for one month. Then, we compared their followers, interactions, and contents. Accordingly, although online posts of sports journalists were less (n = 922) than the institutions they were employed in, they contrarily received more online interaction (e.g., retweet, mention, like). While 51.82% of Twitter posts shared by sports journalists reflected their own opinions and comments, the remaining 48.18% were typically in the form of mentions and retweets. The interactions of the sports journalists with their followers, at a rate of 28.83% in particular, were a significant rate for satisfying their followers' informational, enquiring, and practical needs. Indeed, such an attempt plays a critical role in the adoption of digital leadership roles by the followers of sports journalists. Contrary to traditional leadership roles, the number of followers and interaction rate were the main factors to signify digital leadership; however, aspects such as institution, age, and economic and social statuses were insignificant in the adoption of sports journalists as digital leaders on Twitter.

La influencia de Twitter en las rutinas productivas de los periodistas deportivos en España

“…No obstante, los periodistas deportivos han aprovechado las posibilidades de esta red social a la hora de compartir información e interactuar con los usuarios y seguidores, lo que los llevó a un liderazgo digi-tal durante la pandemia de Covid-19 y en el período posterior al Covid-19 (Balci, et al, 2022). Y es que, pese a que al periodismo deportivo se le ha considerado una sección menor dentro de la estructura de los medios de comunicación (Boyle, 2017;McEnnis, 2020), su papel contribuye, según Perreault y Nölleke (2022), a la cohesión social, como quedó demostrado durante la pandemia pese a la ausencia de eventos deportivos y a que se mantuvo el mismo control informativo de los equipos respecto del acceso de los periodistas (Velloso, 2022).…”

A Study on Digital Leadership Scale Adaptation

“…According to another definition, however, digital leadership is described as "the type of leadership that exists in the digital world by combining actions such as managing, organizing and strategic thinking with skills like knowing, using and disseminating digital age tools in an effective way (Şahı̇n et al, 2020). In accordance with all these definitions, it will be to the point to define digital leaders as leaders who have new and creative ideas in the digital arena, can draw the attention of stakeholders to the digital environment in the context of organizational processes and activities, motivate them, maintain organizational continuity by keeping in touch with members in the digital area, and develop digital strategies which could provide a competitive advantage for the organization (Balci et al, 2022).…”

Communication Significance in Digital Leadership: Does it Matter?

“…At various times, digital leadership necessitates the use of extra leadership philosophies (Balci et al, 2022). The concept of leadership is also shaped by modern technical developments (Narbona, 2016).…”

“…The Covid-19 pandemic outbreak towards the end of 2019 had a significant impact on the rise in popularity of the concept of digital leadership (Balci et al, 2022). Traditional physical leadership varies from digital leadership in specific ways (Balci et al, 2022).…”

“…The Covid-19 pandemic outbreak towards the end of 2019 had a significant impact on the rise in popularity of the concept of digital leadership (Balci et al, 2022). Traditional physical leadership varies from digital leadership in specific ways (Balci et al, 2022). The ability to use digital technology effectively will enable digital leaders to build their interventions practically (Narbona, 2016).…”