preview

Social Media and Sports Alex

Good Essays

Alex Young Mr. Chester English 12 CP Rough Draft 3/27/12 How has Social Networking affected the sporting industry? From all the premier sports athletes like LeBron James, Aaron Rodgers, Andy Roddick, Michael Phelps to all of the big-time sports anchors and newscasts like Chris Berman or Dick Vitale. Social Media has changed the dynamics of how people watch and follow sports on a daily basis. Social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook are two big networks that allow people to stay up to date with their favorite team and/or athlete. Social networking began to boom around seven or eight years ago and is continuing to grow rapidly all around the world. I use both Twitter and Facebook on a day-to-day basis. I am checking on …show more content…

Athletes tend to criticize certain players or coaches about things they think wouldn’t get them into trouble. Athletes also offer compliments to one another for things that are positive in their lives. Michael Fitzpatrick and Henry Jenkins express their opinions on the topic. Fitzpatrick argues the negative side and Jenkins argues the posative side of having a social networking site in general. Fitzpatrick states that over the past few years, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter have all become abruptly popular. Adults find the social networking sites benign, but for children, it opens up the door to more dangers such as bullying, and online child predators who have made the internet their hunting ground. Fitzpatrick has also gathered information that in 2003 approximately 200,000 MySpace accounts were deleted because they were to be marked sexual predators. (Fitzpatrick) Jenkins makes a note that we are learning how to interact across multiple communities and negotiate with diverse norms and that the networking skill is important in all aspects of our lives. “We should be teaching them how to exploit their potential and mitigate their risks, rather than shutting kids off from social networking tools.” Jenkins has also discovered that teachers are beginning to use blogs for knowledge-sharing in schools. They use them to keep the parents and absent students up-to-date on what is going on in the class. They may also have links to other teachers and/or

Get Access