It would seem that there is nothing easier than answering the question – what is sports journalism? It is obvious that the term “sports journalism”, like “business journalism”, “political journalism”, “military journalism” and other specific branches of the generic concept, will lead us to a common denominator – “journalism”. Accordingly, based on the existing definitions of journalism, we can derive a definition of sports journalism. Sports journalism is a socially significant activity of collecting, processing and disseminating relevant sports information through mass communication channels (press, radio, television, Internet), based on a special subject of consideration, description, analysis and audience. The special subject, therefore, is sport, as well as all events of social life around it.
In other words, sports journalism is journalism that tells about sports and everything related to it. The answer is as simple and short as it is comprehensive. But if we try to outline, according to this definition, the boundaries of the subject of research in sports journalism, we will face the fact that these boundaries blur into infinity, and the definition becomes all-encompassing in the full sense of the epithet.
The fact is that modern sport is an extremely broad and diverse phenomenon, and it would be a mistake to combine all the individual aspects of this extremely complex and controversial socio-cultural phenomenon. Therefore, when analyzing the question of cultural, political, ideological and other significant sports in each particular case, it is often necessary to explain which aspect of sport as a social phenomenon is being discussed and considered, and what remains out of the spotlight. The types of sports that researchers usually distinguish will be discussed below.
For now, it should be noted that sport has become such an extremely diverse and multifunctional phenomenon in the course of its evolution. At different stages of development, the semantic field of this concept has repeatedly fluctuated and changed, and the actual embodiments of the concept of “sport” in specific historical forms can differ significantly.
