Analysis the future of media ecology of Rugby and the emerging platforms which may present in a newer media ecology.

As written about in the last blog post, transmedia storytelling may change and adapt as new broadcasting and social media platforms arise in popularity. As seen in the past twenty years, the evolution of media platforms has grown exponentially, and in an increasing social way (Lindgren, 2017). The internet and television channels have changed to be less of a one way communication source, to being more interactive (Feng, Setoodeh, and Haykin, 2017). It is important that media companies that interact with fans online choose the appropriate platform to do so due to how different social media platforms share information with users. Social media platforms give users that engage in conversation a full profile of a person, whereas other social media platforms users’ profiles are hidden (Lingdren, 2017). However, there are social media site which blend both of these properties together.

YouTube for example is a good social media site which works in the meta-business virtual space. It releases on creators, either professional organisation or amateurs, to provide content to attract users to the site (Burgess and Green, 2018). There was a study published about “El Classico” fand behaviour on YouTube and found that except for clear identification differences the experience of these fans was positive highlighting the ease user friendliness of the site (Gil-Lopez, 2017). This trend has been followed to where the UEFA Champions League final is broadcasted on YouTube so that it is more assessable for people that may not watch that competition in the first place.

What does this mean for the future of sport broadcasting and media? There may be a raise in social media app which are already established to have functions which enable users to post videos, and live steam videos to try entering the market which is already dominated by YouTube. However, with YouTube already have a large monopoly on the new sport, education, and lifestyle video content which benefits users it’s hard to suggest that any other app will have a market share (Moghavvemi, 2018). Rugby Union currently is widely played in the English-speaking countries of Asia, Africa, and Europe. If international competitions were broadcasted in YouTube, there may be an interest in Rugby Union outside of these parameters. This could potentially open a new market for Rugby Union, but also Amazon Prime who broadcasting the Autumn Nations Cup by acquiring broadcasting rights to show the competition in countries that have most engagement on these YouTube videos.

Finally, as a result of online streaming becoming a prime way of how people watch sport content, you may see television broadcasting companies step into the sport streaming content. With online streaming services becoming a prime way in which users can watch sport content with ease, television has started to make the transition to app based platforms as a ploy to maintain their subscriptions (Lee et al,. 2018). However, due to the high prices which they still charge, their may be a distress in subscription-based television, and even future rise in online stream content with platforms such as Amazon Prime (Zelizer, 1993).   

References

Burgess, J., & Green, J. (2018). YouTube: Online video and participatory culture. John Wiley & Sons.

Feng, S., Setoodeh, P., & Haykin, S. (2017). Smart home: Cognitive interactive people-centric Internet of Things. IEEE Communications Magazine, 55(2), 34-39.

Gil-Lopez, T., Ahmed, S., & Taylor, L. D. (2017). Understanding fandom in the multilingual internet: A study of “el clásico” fans’ commenting behavior on youtube. International Journal of Sport Communication, 10(1), 17-33.

Lee, C. C., Nagpal, P., Ruane, S. G., & Lim, H. S. (2018). Factors affecting online streaming subscriptions. Communications of the IIMA, 16(1), 2.

Lindgren, S. (2017). Digital media and society. Sage.

Moghavvemi, S., Sulaiman, A., Jaafar, N. I., & Kasem, N. (2018). Social media as a complementary learning tool for teaching and learning: The case of youtube. The International Journal of Management Education, 16(1), 37-42.

Zelizer, B. 1993. “Journalists as Interpretive Communities.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 10 (3): 219–237.