Kate Smart was a contributor to The Roar‘s cycling section when I was its editor. She has just recently begun a new ‘blog’ (yes, not a term I am fond of), Sports Media Theory and crankpunk features heavily in her very first post.
The idea behind the site was to apply media theory to sports media specifically. In her own words she says:
“The original idea behind the blog was to think about media theory and how it can be applied to sports media and that is very much what I want to do, but as I worked through this project I realised that perhaps I should have given the site a much more general title such as “Sports Communications”, as this is at the heart of what interests me.
“The act of communication is undergoing vast change and sports communication is no different, yet it still seems to be dismissed as not being terribly serious or worthy of powering at a deeper level.”
Interesting stuff. Check out her first article here. Below follows a snippet:
Crankpunk is a reminder that sport blogs also serve an important function in seeking transparency in sports journalism.
As Rodgers notes, “Maybe when Armstrong was around, when he first started becoming really successful, maybe if the blogging sphere had of been stronger or if there were more independent people who had better access to cycling fans and had this space which we have now started to generate, maybe Armstrong wouldn’t have been able to get away with as much as he did.”
There is no way of knowing if what is widely called, “the biggest fraud in the history of sport” would have been limited by a larger blogosphere, but it’s an interesting point to think about.
“Maybe he would have had to answer questions and the groundswell of public opinion may not have been on his side”, says Rodgers.
