A Comparative Study On The Coverage Of The2015Australian Open By The Official Weibo Of Sina Teenis And The Official Twitter Of ESPN Tennis

Before2006, people obtained news from newspapers, magazines and portal news websites. But since Twitter came into being, many individuals, especially young people’s habits have changed. As a new media platform, twitter has two main characteristics:every Twitter user could be a publisher; for each tweet, there is a140-word limitation, which contributes to quick editing and posting. The second characteristic is especially obvious in sports news communication where immediacy is valued most. In2009, Sina, a major Internet company of China, launched Weibo, which had similar functions to Twitter.Although Twitter and Weibo have been a hot area of research, few studies to date have explored the use of Twitter or Weibo by Sports media. The continual rise of social media usage among fans, coupled with the increased social media marketing efforts by professional sports media, indicates a research field worthy of examination.This study examines the coverage of the2015Australian Open by the official Weibo of Sina Tennis (OWST) and the official Twitter of ESPN Tennis (Entertainment and Sports Programing Tennis)(OTET), from January19to February1. Guided by the Agenda-setting theory and the framing theory, the study identifies the major themes used by the two social media outlets, analyzing the frames under each theme as well as the forms of reporting, thus uncovers their characteristics of reporting.The study identifies5major themes used by the two media outlets in covering the2015Australian Open. They are1) Results of Games;2) Domestic Athletes;3) Entertainment and Appreciation;4) Big Four’s domination;5) Participation and Sportsmanship.This thesis finds that, the number of reports, in other words the two media outlets’ degree of interest in covering the Australian Open shows significant difference. This is mainly influenced by the performance of domestic athletes and whether the media outlet has financial stake in the Australian Open. The study also finds that though the OWST and OTET show a consistency in the theme choices, they have different priority in using these themes. Besides, they differ a lot in prioritizing frames and forms of tweet. Such contrasts are believed to be influenced by their different political agenda, ideologies and news value.