Communication and Sport

The TWG “Communication and Sport” provides a forum for the growing body of European research on aspects of sports communication. It offers European academics an opportunity to share and discuss their research within the realm of European sports and media systems.

Sport is an essential element of the culture around the world. As a growing social and economic phenomenon, it plays a key role in contemporary societies. The societal role of sport is historically and currently inextricably linked to mediated communication. Mediated sports increasingly form a constituent part of popular culture: Sport is distributed, consumed and even practiced via media. Hence, communication studies all over the world have witnessed a growing interest in mediated sport as an area of study and research. The TWG takes account of this significance and covers the nexus of mediated communication and sport in an inclusive way. It includes issues of communication in relation to popular high-performance sports, marginalized/minority sports, and leisure sports alike. By communication it understands mediated communication comprising phenomena ranging from publicly oriented mass media and social media to semi-public and personal communication efforts, e. g. via smartphone applications. In short, it studies how communication processes influence sport as well as how sport influences communication processes.

The TWG understands itself as interdisciplinary and brings together scholars from all kinds of disciplines as well as practitioners that share the interest in the media-based communication of sport.