Social Media and the Olympics Essay

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Olympics, being one of the world's biggest sporting events, is a natural fit for social media. The Olympics are already a media circus, and social media adds several extra dimensions for this. First, social media is a low cost form of media, but one where there is potential for vast reach. It is popular with consumers, and the accounts of both media and athletes attract a large number of followers. With each successive Olympics since the advent of social media, the use of social media has grown larger and more significant. In Sochi, social media reached a new apex, in part because of a high level of athlete participation, and in part because of the strength of social media networks in other countries -- both Russia and China have their own social networks that are arguably stronger than American ones (Laird, 2014).

The way that Olympics unfold is naturally built for social media. There is a lot going on at once in an Olympic games -- numerous events appealing to numerous audiences. Television newscasts of the Games in most countries feature live event coverage, where the director jumps from one event to another in a rapid fire manner. Social media enable that level of coverage to a much higher degree, where content and audiences are specialized rather than generalized.

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But even mainstream media has the ability to leverage social media, and they do. It is a low cost form of reaching the audience, and can allow media outlets to post news reports are photos with even greater speed and volume than they are otherwise capable of doing through their conventional channels. The use of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in particular enable this function.

For Games' organizers, or media, social media has become an important part of coverage and promotion of the Games. Yet, the relatively unfettered nature of social media poses risks and problems for both media and organizers. Social media content comes from all over -- the media might use social media but by no means do they control it. This creates risk. The transformation over the four years between Vancouver and Sochi saw a proliferation of mobile devices and uses, such that the audience was effectively becoming reporters (Jessop, 2014). The fact that consumers were becoming reporters has implications for the value of media licenses for the Olympics. This is occurring, it should be noted in major media….....

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