Transnational Mediation of Sports: Attention and Verbal Framing of Men’s Handball Teams and Athletes on Danish, German, and Romanian Online Sports News Sites

Abstract

Handball’s mediation and framing in the media can be linked to the popularity and likeability of the sport. The research question is how online sports news sites portray men’s handball teams and athletes in terms of popularity, likeability, and associated verbal framings. Attention is analyzed from the perspectives of frequency of media coverage via the quantitative data in Danish, German, and Romanian most read sports news sites (Denmark - Exstra Bladet, Germany - Kicker, Romania - Gazeta Sporturilor), Madrigal’s fandom idioms dimensions and the ‘News Factors’ by Harcup and O’Neill. The time frame for the analysis covers the men’s European Handball League in 2021-22. From a population size of sports news articles N = 1100, considering a confidence level of Z = 95% with a margin of error of MOEi = 5% and a sample proportion pˆ =0.5. A sample size of n = 285 articles was defined, from which this paper includes a first batch of n1 = 41 articles from this ongoing research.

Keywords:

• sports media
• mediation of sports
• media attention
• verbal framing in sports
• handball

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The term ‘Mediation’ is used here from a communication and journalism point of view and refers to the ways in which media engages in defining something, based on Lieverouw’s, definition in ‘New media, mediation, and communication study’ (2009) and derived from Oxford Dictionary definition of mediation being the process of influencing something and/or make it possible for it to happen.

2 Andrea Simon-Maeda, ‘The Americanization of Daisuke Matsuzaka: a textual analysis of sports media discourse’, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 27, no. 6 (2013): 913–33.

3 Yuexi Su, ‘Research on Transnational Athletics Coverage and Cultural Bias’, Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research 615 (2022): 1348–52.

4 Christian Ungruhe and Sine Agergaard, ‘Cultural transitions? Transcultural and border-crossing activities among sport labor migrants’, Sport in Society 23, no. 4 (2020): 717–33.

5 Simon Ličen and Andrew C. Billings, ‘Affirming nationality in transnational circumstances: Slovenian coverage of continental franchise sports competitions’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport 48, no. 6 (2012): 753.

6 Dalia Sedky, Wael Kortam, and Ehab AbouAish, ‘The role of sports marketing in attracting audiences towards less popular sports’, Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences 4, no. 2 (2022): 114.

7 Ryan Parker, ‘The Most Popular Sports in Europe’, Human Kinetics, July 11, 2019, https://humankinetics.me/2019/07/11/most-popular-sports-in-europe/.

8 Walter Gantz, Zheng Wang, Bryant Paul, and Robert F. Potter, ‘Sports Versus All Comers: Comparing TV Sports Fans With Fans of Other Programming Genres’, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 50, no. 1 (2006): 96–9.

9 The Oxford Dictionary, ‘Definition of popularity noun’, The Oxford Dictionary, 2008, https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/popularity#:∼:text=the%20state%20of%20being%20liked,enjoys%20widespread%20popularity%20among%20teenagers (accessed October 10, 2022).

10 Daniel Șerbănică and Mihaela Constantinescu, ‘Using public relations in sports’, Romanian Journal of Marketing 11, no. 2 (2016): 33–4.

11 Daniel C. Funk, Consumer Behavior in Sport and Events – Marketing Action (New York: Routledge, 2008).

12 Coleen C. Bee and Mark E. Havitz, ‘Exploring the relationship between involvement, fan attraction, psychological commitment, and behavioral loyalty in a sports spectator context’, International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship 11, no. 2 (2010): 40.

13 Leah A. Lieverouw, ‘New media, mediation, and communication study’, Information, Communication & Society 12, no. 3 (2009): 313.

14 Bee and Havitz, ‘Exploring the relationship between involvement, fan attraction, psychological commitment, and behavioral loyalty in a sports spectator context’, 42.

15 Lieverouw, ‘New media, mediation, and communication study’, 313.

16 Ibid.

17 Bee and Havitz, ‘Exploring the relationship between involvement, fan attraction, psychological commitment, and behavioral loyalty in a sports spectator context’, 42.

18 Robert Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’ Journal of Leisure Research, 38, no. 3 (2006): 267–92.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Sedky, Kortam, and AbouAish, ‘The role of sports marketing in attracting audiences towards less popular sports’, 116.

22 Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’, 267–92.

23 Nicky Lewis, and Andrew J. Waver, ‘More Than a Game: Sports Media Framing Effects on Attitudes, Intentions, and Enjoyment’, Communication & Sport 3, no. 2 (2013): 5–10.

24 Ibid.

25 Ličen and Billings, ‘Affirming nationality in transnational circumstances: Slovenian coverage of continental franchise sports competitions’, 756.

26 Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’, 267–92.

27 Sedky, Kortam, and AbouAish, ‘The role of sports marketing in attracting audiences towards less popular sports’, 116.

28 Klaus Krippendorff, Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (California: Thousand Oaks, 2004).

29 Brittany Humphries, Martha Radice, and Sophie Lauzier, ‘Comparing “insider” and “outsider” news coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak’, Canadian Journal of Public Health 108, no. 4 (2017): 382.

30 Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’, 267–92.

31 Tony Harcup, and Deirdre O’Neill, ‘What is news? News values revisited’, Journalism Studies 18, no. 12 (2016): 1470-88.

32 Serbanica and Constantinescu, ‘Using public relations in sports’, 33–4.

33 Lieverouw, ‘New media, mediation, and communication study’, 309.

34 Lewis, and Waver, ‘More Than a Game: Sports Media Framing Effects on Attitudes, Intentions, and Enjoyment’, 2–4.

35 Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’, 267–92.

36 Harcup, and O’Neill, ‘What is news? News values revisited’, 1470-88.

37 Laura Koivunen-Niemi, and Masood Masoodian, ‘Visualizing narrative patterns in online news media’, Multimedia Tools and Applications 79, no. 1–2 (2019): 928.

38 Ibid.

39 From the total number of articles selected, 5% of error margin was considered to cover the articles that include the word Håndbold (Danish), Handball (German), handbal (Romanian) in their title or in the tags of the article but are not referring to handball in their contents, were deleted in the meantime or are paid articles that could not be accessed.

40 The random sampling selection was done with Random Chooser, www.mauvecloud.net/randomchooser (accessed October 10, 2022).

41 Humphries, Radice, and Lauzier, ‘Comparing “insider” and “outsider” news coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak’, 382.

42 Ibid.

43 Exstra Bladet, ‘Total kaos: - Drønærgerligt, Exstra Bladet’, Exstra Bladet, January 11, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022).

44 Gazeta Sporturilor, ‘Fara Cristina Neagu, CSM București s-a facut de ras cu o nou-promovata. Selecționerul Adrian Vasile n-a folosit nicio romanca!’, Gazeta Sporturilor, September 03, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022).

45 Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’, 267–92.

46 Ibid.

47 Exstra Bladet, ‘Bad show: Moving the Olympics away from Paris’, Exstra Bladet, September 14, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022).

48 Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’, 267–92.

49 Gazeta Sporturilor, ‘Without Cristina Neagu, CSM Bucharest made a fool of itself with a newly-promoted player. Coach Adrian Vasile did not use any Romanian player!’, Gazeta Sporturilor, September 03, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022).

50 Exstra Bladet, ‘Great Danish result’, Exstra Bladet, September 14, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022).

51 Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’, 267–92.

52 Exstra Bladet, ‘One could forget the championship’, Exstra Bladet, September 14, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022).

53 Exstra Bladet, ‘Extending the finale series’, Exstra Bladet, May 28, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022).

54 Gazeta Sporturilor, ‘Gheorghe Tadici’s introspection: “Demanding, yes. But not tough!” The club that offered him the biggest contract of his career: “No big secret”’, Gazeta Sporturilor, March 28, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022).

55 Gazeta Sporturilor, ‘CSM Bucharest won the derby with Rapid and reignites the fight for the title in the “Liga Florilor”. Cristina Neagu, imperial in front of the Giulesti’ fans’, Gazeta Sporturilor, February 24, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022); Gazeta Sporturilor, ‘Conclusions after Romania’s performance at the World Handball Championship. What Adi Vasile and Alexandru Dedu say + the “tricolours” radiography’, Gazeta Sporturilor, December 15, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022), Gazeta Sporturilor, ‘BRD, alongside the Romanian national women’s handball team. Cristina Neagu: “We can win any match at the World Cup!”’, Gazeta Sporturilor, November 30, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022); Gazeta Sporturilor, ‘Absent from the World Cup, Cristina Neagu gave the TOP 3 most beautiful matches she played for the “national team”’, Gazeta Sporturilor, November 30, 2022 (accessed October 10, 2022).

56 Harcup, and O’Neill, ‘What is news? News values revisited’, 1470–88.

57 The articles with the biggest score are curated from a News Value’s (Harcup and O’Neill, 2016) perspective and the ones that have reached the biggest scores are: ‘PSG handball player stabbed on New Year’s Eve in Paris!’ (Gazeta Sporturilor) with 45 points from five News Factors, ‘Gheorghe Tadici’s introspection: “Demanding, yes. But not tough!”. The club that offered him the biggest contract of his career: “No big secret”’ (Gazeta Sporturilor) with 43 points from six News Factors and ‘Total chaos: It’s a shame’ (Exstra Bladet) with 41 points derived from five News Factors. The article with only two points by one News Value is from Kicker: ‘Big fish on the hook: Hannover takes Quenstedt from Kiel’. Overall, Kicker has a score average of 11.3 and checks two to three News Factors (Harcup & O’Neill, 2016), whereas Exstra Bladet has an average score of 15.5 from two to three News Factors and Gazeta Sporturilor gathered an average score of 16.7 by also checking two to three News Factors. Across all three news sites, the most prominent News Factor (Harcup & O’Neill, 2016) is Relevance (appears in 23 articles), followed by the Power Elite (16 articles) and the Bad News (11 articles). The least present News Factors (Harcup & O’Neill, 2016) are Exclusivity, Audio Visuals and Good News (each with two articles).

58 Humphries, Radice, and Lauzier, ‘Comparing “insider” and “outsider” news coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak’, 382.

59 Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’, 267–92.

60 Harcup, and O’Neill, ‘What is news? News values revisited’, 1470-88.

61 Ibid.

62 Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’, 267–92.

63 Harcup, and O’Neill, ‘What is news? News values revisited’, 1470–88.

64 Madrigal, ‘Measuring the Multidimensional Nature of Sporting Event Performance Consumption’, 267–92.

65 Harcup, and O’Neill, ‘What is news? News values revisited’, 1470–88.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brîndușa-Maria Cerga

Brîndușa-Maria Cerga , PhD is a PR specialist and a researcher of strategic communication at the Babeș-Bolyai University. Her career is in client-facing corporate communication focused on the DACH region.