Technological Evolution or Revolution? Sport Online Live Internet Commentary as Postmodern Cultural Form

The coverage of sports has formed a key component of media content throughout the different stages of the development of communication technology. This article investigates to what extent the rise of online live text commentary of sporting events extends or departs from existing forms of representation in media sports, and thus whether it constitutes a form of technological evolution or revolution. The article argues that online sports commentary further advances the transnational distribution of sporting content and the rise of global sporting cultures, and thereby contributes to the globalisation tendencies of other electronic media such as television. At the same time online live text commentary in its minimal representation of the game event through facts and figures moves beyond the visual spectacle that has coined the televisual representation of sports, and thus requires modes of readership based on fan identification. Online live text commentary thus extends and alters the symbolic basis of sports coverage.