“Time to Award Some Medals”: A Comparative Social Media Analysis of Olympic Coverage in the United States and Australia

in International Journal of Sport Communication

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Kelsey Slater Department of Health, Nutrition, and Exercise Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA

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Dunja Antunovic School of Kinesiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

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Meg S. Messer School of Kinesiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

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Sam P. Dreher School of Kinesiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsc.2023-0144
Keywords:
Olympics; agenda setting; gender equality; nationalism
First Published Online:
08 Jun 2023
In Print:
Volume 16: Issue 4
Page Range:
460–470
Restricted access

Rights-holding broadcasters of the Olympic Games play an integral role in conveying the values of the Olympic Movement, but few studies have examined these networks’ social media content. This investigation involved a comparative content analysis of rights-holding broadcasters’ official Olympic Twitter accounts in the United States (@NBCOlympics) and Australia (@7Olympics) during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Results indicate significant differences between the two accounts in sport disciplines, gender representations, and national interest. Both accounts dedicated <40% of the tweets to women’s sport. Whereas the American outlet NBC promoted home athletes, Australia’s Seven Network emphasized athletes from other countries. Twitter accounts partially followed the televisual logics of representation patterns, but contextual factors specific to social media structured agenda diversity. Contextual elements (e.g., structure of sport schedules and nation-specific factors) are also relevant when interpreting representation patterns. Theoretical implications for agenda setting and methodological directions for cross-national Olympic social media research are discussed.

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