Trend: Digital Culture in Sports



In my senior capstone seminar class, our topic of the class has been digital culture.  One of the projects we kept up with is we created a facebook page, Digital Culture and Social Media, and we posted topics of what trend we liked.  I'm a college athlete and i love everything about sports and the technology that goes along with that.  My trend is the digital culture in sports, whether is marketing techniques or new technologies that support the digital culture. 

I found multiple articles and information that i posted on the Facebook page.  What benefited me and i think the rest of the class is that most of our articles posted on the page were recent news posted online no older than 2 or 3 days.  I posted articles that were relevant and not outdated.  Mostly about marketing techniques through the digital culture for sports and then technology with sports. 

With technological advances and businesses and even sporting teams have to adapt to the new times.  I posted an article on how a sports teams are starting to use the new social media platform Pinterest to their advantage.  The article explains that sports teams are adding pinterest into their marketing plans and that it creates a buzz with their fans.  The teams are using Pinterest to showcase content from fans, display merchandise and more.  Even though the site is largely female dominated, sporting teams aren't treating it that way.  They're simply providing another social media platform where their fans can interact and pin things relating to their team.

Another article i posted had to do with new technology and the way it is used for fitness.  With our smart phones today, there are millions of applications to choose from to have on your phone.  Fitness is something important for a lot of people, but some people just do not have the time to go to the gym for an hour after a thirty minute drive to get there.  GAIN Fitness launched the Ultimate Digital Personal Trainer.  This evolution of fitness training is an app for the iPhone that is a platform for multiple training styles.  It acts as a digital personal trainer by creating workouts customized in real time to each user's experience level, schedule, goals and equipment available. It puts a new emphasis on 'hitting the gym'. 

The digital culture in sports continues to grow.  Businesses and sporting teams continue to adapt and change the game completely.  Sporting teams continue to find more ways to interact with their fans and find their needs.  Businesses continue to try and supply bigger and better forms of technology that relates to fitness and sports.  The trend i picked was not only something i love and interested in, it was fun to find these relevant articles and share them with the class. 

Citizen Journalism

Technological advances have allowed citizen journalism to spread rapidly over the past decade. Citizen journalists can post their information through blogs, videos and social media platforms to provide possible eye witness account where the mainstream media may not have footage of.  YouTube has only been around for less than a decade and it already has a huge impact on citizen journalism.  Anyone can post videos and information on this site for anyone can see across the world.  Citizen journalist use this media platform to put their footage out for the world to see with just one click on the computer.  Citizen journalism is changing the way people get their news and where they get it from. 

Here is a video found on YouTube on some of the top citizen journalism moments from Katie Couric.

With the technological advances happening all the time, it makes it very easy for citizen journalists to get their information of videos online.  Anyone who has a smart phone or and iPhone can be a citizen journalist.  Having the ability to have something in your pocket and being able to pull it out to capture video footage at anytime and posting that video on the spot.  Here is a video on how technology is changing journalism..

I predict that the work force of professional journalism will continue to change towards more citizen journalism.  I believe that more and more professional journalists are going to have to count on citizen journalist to get their information and footage from point of view encounters.  I believe that professional journalist will need to have citizen journalist on a 'team' and provide their stories and videos to them in order for professional journalism to stay alive.  I believe that we still need professional journalist because we need someone who can look over these stories and be able to present them effectively and i believe that this is where the journalism field is going.



Video Gaming

It is crazy to think about the evolution of video gaming and the culture behind it.  The foundation of video games were laid by games such as 'Pong', 'Tic-Tac-Toe' and 'Pac-Man'.  Simple games that had restricted graphics and boundaries.  Today, there are numerous platforms that video games can be played on and the boundaries are almost limitless. Here is a cool and funny rap video on the history of video gaming.

There are unbelievable graphics and functions in today's video games and makes the user feel more involved and apart of the game.  It's turning what is virtual into what is real.  The accessibility of video gaming has come to a new level as well.  Once we had to play video games with cords connecting us to the platform.  Now, platforms consist of our flat screen televisions, computers, handheld gaming devices (such as PSP), and even our mobile phones.

Video gaming has also brought us off the couch and put us in motion.  The video gaming console, Wii, has brought a new era to the table.  With the Wii, people use the remote and sensors for motion activated gaming.  So, if it is a bowling game, one can stand up and use the remote as a bowling ball.  It brings the players into the game more and makes it feel more of a reality.  However, one gaming console has changed the game so to speak.  Xbox kinect has brought the newest technology to the table and has allowed players to play games with no remotes, no cords and just using the bodies as the remote.  There is a sensor that picks up body movements so players can play games with their own body movements, instead of a controller.  Here is a video on the Kinect.

There is also the culture behind video gaming.  Why do people play video games?  I feel that video gaming brings us out of the real world for a minute and puts us into a virtual world where we feel alive in the game itself.  It is personable and brings people into a virtual world.  There is also the sociability of video gaming.  There is now video gaming live where one can play someone in a video game anywhere in the world and communicate with them.  The possibilities are endless and where were going next could be anywhere...