For Better or for Worse: The Impact of Social Media on Chinese Sports Journalists

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of social media in Chinese sports journalism. After distributing an online survey using a snowball sampling technique, a total of 133 Chinese sports journalists working in print media participated in this study. The results indicated that news gathering was reported as a primary motivation to use social media. Weibo and WeChat, two localized social networking tools, were the most commonly used tools among participants. Nearly half of participating sports journalists admitted that monitoring information on social media increased their pressure level and created workloads. The majority of sports journalists believed social media had weakened their gatekeeping role due to the increase in citizen journalists and the increase in channels and sources from which users obtain news and information. The study also found that the relationship between journalists and athletes has also been altered with the advent of social media.

Mining social media for newsgathering: A review

“…With this increase in terms of popularity [30], social media has become a powerful tool for journalists and news organisations ranging from health journalism [31] to sports journalism [32], including emergency journalism [33] and political journalism [34]. Social media in the context of journalism is being mainly used in the following three ways: (i) as a venue to freely post news stories to reach out to potential new readers and increase the number of visitors on their websites, cf.…”

Twitter and sports journalism in Germany: Application and networks during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

“…Driven by these trends, journalists have less access today than they had decades ago (Suggs, 2015(Suggs, , 2016. Four out of five Chinese sports journalists, for instance, note that social media threaten traditional print media (Li et al, 2017). They reported gathering news as primary motivation for using social media.…”

“…They reported gathering news as primary motivation for using social media. Only a small percentage of respondents noted a professional simplification based on more news sources and more available information than before the digital era (Li et al, 2017). Monitoring information on social network sites has increased professional pressure.…”

“…While some journalists feel a closer relation with athletes due to private or personal information on social network sites, others acknowledge a more distant relation and social media threatening traditional media (Li et al, 2017). However, it was recently found that social media, which can also provide opportunities that support journalistic practice, are perceived as valuable tools by sports journalists.…”

“…How far sports journalists are adapting to technological changes and applying social media in professional circumstances is important and relatively unexplored either (Li et al, 2017). Internationally renowned sports events guarantee worldwide attention and open up the chance for protagonists to reach large audiences.…”