Sport as a Media Communication Phenomenon

Abstract

The article deals with the notion of sport as a phenomenon of media communication, identifies categories of media communication, mass communication, sports communication. The article is based on the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century there was a rapid institutionalization of journalism, including sports. Sport has become a full-fledged part of mass culture and media communication discourse. The number of sports disciplines, organizations, competitions has increased, the need for sport as a form of entertainment, recreation, self-realization has grown. This was based on fundamental changes in the society itself, when the completed industrial revolution, the introduction of mass production gave the man extra free time and an opportunity to be in charge of it. At the same time, the means of communication were developing and the amount of sports information was increasing: the radio, then television, appeared and became actively present in everyday life. Thus, the interest in sports encouraged the development of information channels, and they, developing, drew the attention of an increasing number of people to sports. Eventually, sport became a phenomenon of a planetary scale, and media channels themselves began to influence the rules of sporting events. The article defines the place of sport in the media communication field. The author singles out the motives of the audience's appeal to the materials of sports journalism. This allows us to outline the main functions of sports media communication, which it performs in the society.