So it’s been a while since I’ve last blogged on New Media Mogul. Lately I’ve been busy helping to put together an exhibition on media technologies in the home, which I made a film for that I will upload to this site when I get some free time. Although this has not been directly related to my PhD, the increased prevalence of media technologies and the way in which they are used directly impacts on the area of research I am undertaking.
The latest thing I’d wanted to blog about was the recent incident where Andrew Symonds again found himself in hot water for getting into an altercation with a hotel patron in Brisbane, after only just returning to the Australian cricket team after an enforced layoff.
Typically the mainstream media reported it, and the incident made front page news in several newspapers and online news sites. Of course opinions were written about whether Symonds should be allowed to stay in the game, and there was the usual examination of any issue like this.
Twenty four hours later it was reported that Symonds’ version of events, in which he was the victim of the incident, was found to have been what actually happened and as of today Symonds is still playing cricket for the Australian team.
What’s interesting to think about here is how professional sporting organisations like Cricket Australia, which seemingly spend more time on image management than anything else would have approached the incident if it had occurred in a landscape dominated by social media.
Imagine if people started ‘twittering’ or blogging about what allegedly took place at the hotel. (E.g. Aussiecricketlover Just seen Symonds hit a bloke for six, no cricket bat involved #cricket).
How would Cricket Australia respond? Would they twitter back? (E.g. CricketAustralia investigating Symonds incident and will let you know shortly). Without the thousands of words of copy and countless hours of television coverage of the Symonds incident at their disposal, would they be able to repair the damage to Symonds’ reputation as readily?
This is something that sporting organisations have to consider as social media outlets like Twitter become more prevalent. Considering that Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull both ‘tweet’, it is becoming a powerful communication tool. But because professional sporting organisations are unique, in that it isn’t just about getting a message out but also maintaining an image, it becomes trickier for them. The next phase of my research is going to look at what strategies they might use to negotiate this.
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