Promotional Space or Public Forum: Protest Coverage and Reader Response in Team-Operated Media

Abstract

As sports reemerge as a site for social protest, league- and team-controlled media are a new forum for the spread and consideration of political messages. In-house sites challenge established boundaries between journalism and promotional content, but they seek to engage readers by establishing themselves as credible sources, although judgments about credibility are ultimately up to the audience. This content and textual analysis uses social protest by athletes following comments by President Donald Trump about National Football League (NFL) players in September 2017 as a means of exploring the terms of engagement in team media between site producers and audience. In content produced about the protest, writers for NFL team sites stressed the ideas of unity and collaboration expressed by players and executives. Fan response on Facebook was harshly critical toward the protesting athletes, teams, and NFL. These findings suggest in-house media may amplify messages of social protest, but fans use their power in this space to contest those messages. At the same time, the use of in-house spaces as equivalent to newspaper comment sections further casts team media content as less overtly promotional.

Keywords

NFL protest boundary work team media activism social media

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abbott

(1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. University of Chicago Press.

Anderson

A. A.

Yeo

S. K.

Brossard

Scheufele

D. A.

Xenos

M. A.

(2018). Toxic talk: How online incivility can undermine perceptions of media. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 30, 156–168. doi:10.1093/ijpor/edw022

Anderson

C. W.

(2013). What aggregators do: Towards a networked concept of journalistic expertise in the digital age. Journalism, 14, 1008–1023. doi:10.1177/1464884913492460

Bellamy

R. V.

(2012). Reflections on communication and sport: On institutions and strategies. Communication and Sport, 1, 43–54. doi:10.1177/2167479512468870

Bolen

(2012). Rich Hammond and the evolving role of official team website reporter. Retrieved January 11, 2013, from Defending Big D website: http://www.defendingbigd.com/2012/10/16/3509784/rich-hammond-los-angeles-kings-official-team-website-nhl-lockout-resigned

Carlson

(2015). The many boundaries of journalism. In Carlson

Lewis

S. C.

(Eds.), Boundaries of Journalism (pp. 1–18). Oxford University Press.

Coleman

(2015). BBWAA letting MLB.com writers is necessary, but a bad sign for the future. Retrieved March 21, 2016, from The Crawfish Boxes website: http://www.crawfishboxes.com/2015/12/8/9873272/bbwaa-letting-mlb-com-writers-is-necessary-but-a-bad-sign-for-the

Druckman

J. N.

(2001). On the limits of framing effects: Who can frame? The Journal of Politics, 63, 1041–1066. doi:10.1111/0022-3816.00100

Foss

S. K.

(2004). Ideological criticism. In Foss

S. K.

(Ed.), Rhetorical criticism: Exploration and practice (4th ed., pp. 209–266). Waveland Press.

10.

Friedland

Shah

D. V.

Lee

N.-J.

Rademacher

M. A.

Atkinson

Hove

(2007). Capital, consumption, communication, and citizenship: The social positioning of taste and civic culture in the United States. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 611, 31–50. doi:10.1177/0002716206298694

11.

Fry

(2011). Rules of the game change as sports journalists compete against teams they cover | Poynter. Retrieved December 14, 2012, from Poynter.org website: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/146069/rules-of-the-game-change-as-sports-journalists-compete-against-teams-they-cover/

12.

Gieryn

(1983). Boundary-work and the demarcation of science from non-science: Strains and interests in professional ideologies of scientists. American Sociological Review, 48, 781–795. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095325

13.

Gieryn

(1999). Cultural boundaries of science. University of Chicago Press.

14.

Hammond

. (2009). Hammond says goodbye to LA Daily News. Retrieved December 17, 2012, from LAkings.com website: http://kings.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=499527

15.

Hartmann

(2007). Rush Limbaugh, Donovan McNabb, and “a little social concern”: Reflections on the problems of whiteness in contemporary American sport. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 31, 45–60. doi:10.1177/0193723506296831

16.

Hille

Bakker

(2013). I like news. Searching for the ‘Holy Grail’of social media: The use of Facebook by Dutch news media and their audiences. European Journal of Communication, 28, 663–680.

17.

Hoffarth

(2012, October 11). Was the NHL about to compromise the integrity of Kings’ ‘insider’ Hammond? | Farther Off the Wall. Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved from http://www.insidesocal.com/tomhoffarth/2012/10/11/more-on-why-the/

18.

Jenkins

(2000, August 9). League’s web site links teams internet to be just like TV. USA Today, p. 3C.

19.

Johnson

(September 23, 2017). ‘I love Alabama—it’s special’: At rally for Sen. Luther Strange, Trump vents frustrations in rambling speech. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09/23/i-love-alabama-its-special-at-rally-for-sen-luther-strange-trump-vents-frustrations-in-rambling-speech/?utm_term=.387415bbac42

20.

Kaufman

. (2008). Boos, bans, and other backlash: The consequences of being an activist athlete. Humanity & Society, 32, 215–237. doi:10.1177/016059760803200302

21.

Kaufman

Wolff

E. A.

(2010). Playing and protesting: Sport as a vehicle for social change. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 34, 154–175. doi:10.1177/0193723509360218

22.

Kian

E. M.

Murray

(2014). Curmudgeons but yet adapters: Impact of web 2.0 and Twitter on newspaper sports journalists’ jobs, responsibilities, and routines. International Symposium on Online Journalism, 4, 61–77.

23.

L’Etang

(2006). Public relations and sport in promotional culture. Public Relations Review, 32, 386–394. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2006.09.006

24.

Lewis

S. C.

(2012). The tension between professional control and open participation. Information, Communication & Society, 15, 836–866. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2012.674150

25.

Libit

(2011). The Smith rules. Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved from http://www.cjr.org/reports/the_smith_rules.php

26.

Lipsyte

(2014, December 3). Serving sports fans through journalism. Espn.Com. Retrieved from http://www.espn.com/blog/ombudsman/post/_/id/501/serving-sports-fans-through-journalism

27.

McLeod

D. M.

(2007). News coverage and social protest: How the media’s protest paradigm exacerbates social conflict. Journal of Dispute Resolution 2007, 184–195.

28.

Mirer

(2016). Stealing Signs: In-house sports reporters and journalistic boundary work Doctoral dissertation, The University of Wisconsin-Madison.

29.

Mirer

(2018). “I did what I do” versus “I cover football”: Boundary work, in-house media and athlete protest. Journalism Practice, 12, 251–267. doi:10.1080/17512786.2017.1284016

30.

Mirer

(2019). Playing the right way: In-house sports reporters and media ethics as boundary work. Journal of Media Ethics: Exploring Questions of Media Morality, 34, 1–14. doi:10.1080/23736992.2019.1599719

31.

Mirer

Duncan

M. A.

Wagner

M. W.

(2018). Taking it from the team: Assessments of bias and credibility in team-operated sports media. Newspaper Research Journal, 39, 481–495. doi:10.1177/0739532918806890

32.

Moore

J. H.

Carlson

(2013). Reaching the audience: New communication technology practices in college sports public relations. Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, 23, 109–123.

33.

Revers

(2014). Journalistic professionalism as performance and boundary work: Source relations at the state house. Journalism, 15, 37–52. doi:10.1177/1464884913480459

34.

Rieder

(2013). Studying Facebook via data extraction. Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Web Science Conference on—WebSci ‘13, 346–355. doi:10.1145/2464464.2464475

35.

Robinson

(2010). Traditionalists vs. convergers: Textual privilege, boundary work, and the journalist-audience relationship in the commenting policies of online news sites. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 16, 125–143. doi:10.1177/1354856509347719

36.

Robinson

. (2011). “Journalism as process”: The organizational implications of participatory online news. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 13, 137–210

37.

Sanderson

Barnes

Williamson

Kian

E. T.

(2016). How could anyone have predicted that #AskJameis would go horribly wrong? Public relations, social media, and hashtag hijacking. Public Relations Review, 42, 31–37. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2015.11.005

38.

Schmidt

H. C.

(2018). Sport reporting in an era of activism: Examining the intersection of sport media and social activism. International Journal of Sport Communication, 11, 2–17.

39.

Schmittel

Sanderson

(2014). Talking about Trayvon in 140 characters: Exploring NFL players’ tweets about the George Zimmerman verdict. Journal of Sport & Social Issues. doi:10.1177/0193723514557821

40.

Singer

J. B.

(2003). Who are these guys? The online challenge to the notion of journalistic professionalism. Journalism, 4, 139–163. doi:10.1177/146488490342001

41.

Tuchman

. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. Free Press.

42.

Yanity

(2013). Publishing for paydirt: A case study of an athletic department writer. International Journal of Sport Communication, 6, 478–489.