Reconfiguring Media Sport for the Online World: An Inquiry Into "Sports News and Digital Media"

Abstract

This article examines a pioneering intervention by government in the control and ownership of media sport under prevailing networked digital media conditions. The 2009 Australian Senate Inquiry into “Sports News and the Emergence of Digital Media” provided a political forum for debate among 44 participants, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Association of Newspapers. The participation of these and other international organizations demonstrated that this national inquiry was of global significance in regulatory and commercial debates over how the “media sport content economy” might operate in the digital age. Our analysis focuses on the causes of the disagreements that prompted the Inquiry, which demonstrated that emerging media sport markets are characterized by complex interaction, tense competition, and awkward overlaps between broadcast media and networked digital communications. This situation has disturbed the established media sport order and destabilized pivotal organizing categories, including the definition of “sports news.”