Sport of Children and Young People in Australia and China

Sport plays an important role in culture and economic life both in Australia and China. Developing sport of children and young people is building a future for the two nations’ sport. 

 

There are obvious differences and similarities when compared the two countries’ junior sports in the areas of popular sport among children and young people, the current structure for children and young people to play organized sport, parents’ opinion on junior sport, current policy in both countries and the way for children and young people to play professional sport. The differences, similarities and possible reasons will be discussed in this article.  

 Popular sport among children and young people both in China and Australia and possible reasons

 Among teenagers, the most popular sport are soccer, basketball, ping pang, gymnastics, diving, track and field, badminton, sports dance and swimming in China. Children and young people show their love to soccer although some of them do not play soccer and there are no strong national soccer team in China according to the research online among children and young people before 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

 According to Australian Bureau of Statistics (2003) Sport and Recreation, it sees a big difference below the table compared with China about popular sports in junior sport participation. However, children and young people in both countries like playing team sport according to the table.

 

Boys	Soccer 22%,	Swimming 16%	Australia football 14%	Tennis, cricket, basketball 9%
Girls	Netball 18%	Swimming 17%	Tennis 8%	Basketball 7%

 

Event Coordinator, Kate Smith, agrees that soccer is the most popular sport among teenage boys although it varies from region to region but rugby league and rugby union might be the second place among teenage boys recently. There are reasons contributing to that such as the quality of competitions of soccer and rugby around Australia, the huge content of soccer and rugby matches on TV and the tradition of playing soccer and rugby in Australia according to Smith. The reasons are similar to why netball is popular among girls. Girls also played soccer when they were children while changed to netball when they grew up.

Jacqui Bachelard, whose child plays soccer in West Pymble Eagles soccer club, said “for us, the popular sport is soccer but any team sport whether basketball, rugby anywhere that they can get a social contact with their peer group and a club environment gives that organised structure. We only have boys but I hear that girls are still into netball in a club environment.”

Bachelard summarized some other possible reasons from her experience and her friends’ stories. She thought children can meet lifelong friends playing sport and the adults also meet good friends along the way. Only 1% of kids will go all the way to the professional side of sport as they all have to earn living and sport in this country and the selection process is exclusive and though many have those aspirations but in reality only a few will make it as they all have to go overseas to achieve that dream.

Earning living is also an important reason for some children who have the hope to play professional sport in the future in China. However, the common way for them is to win a gold medal in the Olympic Games. 

The current popular sports and possible reasons among children and young people were also broadly discussed by scholars. According to Light (2008), fun and friendship are the main reasons given for playing sport and children and young people will not participate in them unless these activities have meaning for them, are enjoyable, and have a social dimension. That is why team sport is more popular among children and young people.

Many teenagers in high level sport are all looking at going to the states and looking for scholarships at American Universities as they have an option at playing College sport and get a degree all at the same time according to Light (2008).

Current organised sport for children and young people both in China and Australia and possible reasons

There are currently three organised ways for children and young people to play sport in China: school sport, amateur sport school training and junior sport clubs according to the Chinese Ministry of Education.

However, junior club sport is just a new trend in China and parents would like their children to play an instrument with the same money instead of playing sport for fun in a sports club. Parents who really want their children play sport with the hope their children can play professional sports will send their children to get training from amateur sports school or some famous national team coaches who are selecting young potential athletes. These always happen in gymnastics, diving, swimming and table tennis what sport Chinese athletes have the hope to get gold medals in the Olympic Games.

Organised sport in Australia is accessible for children and young people through the two systems of school sport and club sport according to Light (2008). “These two systems run parallel to each other and it is very common for young Australians to participate in both. There are, however, differences in the structure and the cultures of the sports played in these two systems that varies from sport to sport and place to place (Light, 2008).”

 The difference between school sport and club sport in Australia

 Although both school sport and club sport are common for young Australians, Kate Smith thought it was still sort of depending on where they were located in Australia and what sport they played.

 It is compulsory to play sport in a lot of schools and therefore teenagers play sport in their school teams. Lots of them want to reach a high level so they play in a local club as well. So they compete in more than one competition. That’s always due to the level of the competition in school. In local community, they can play a high level. If play the rugby union and rugby league, they need more power, strength, and the school cannot get that so they play in clubs. The precents of participating in sport through schools or clubs are different in sport and locations. Some sport is common in school and it only gets several clubs. I think there is no data shows whether teenagers play sport more in schools or clubs. Some of the schools make it compulsory that students have to compete in local communities but some other schools have not the power and facility to run a sports team.

 Smith also mentioned that sports clubs can provide a relative high-level sport for children and young people in Australia which was also agreed by Light (2008). The critical shortage of teachers who are interested in inter-school sport and who are prepared to coach teams and the lack of resources for school sport make the boys feel the school are less interested in their results and they cannot get enough support from the school teams.

 However, teenagers can get training two to three times a week in their clubs and compete in a long season of games. Sport and their performance in games are the center of attention in the club communities especially for team sport such as soccer, rugby and basketball.

 Comparing with Chinese parents, Australian parents show their great support even found the club for their children to play sport in a sports event. Eschol Park Wolves Soccer Club manager, Robert Mereno said “we hosted a fundraising party for the registration fee to take part in the Kanga Cup (soccer games event) and fortunately it went very well supported by the parents to give the boys a chance to compete soccer in a big event.”

 Why Chinese children and young people play sport in school

It is schools’ responsibility to provide students at least one hour of daily physical activity in China.

In addition, to encourage juniors to participate in sport during the period of school, the Chinese Ministry of Education and State Sport General Administration issued National Student Health Standard which pointed out that the physical test results of national school students will affect their graduation, applying scholarship and applying for higher studies.

Taking Beijing as an example, the students who participate in one the following sports: football, basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball, handball, table tennis, badminton, tennis, track and field, swimming, martial arts, taekwondo, aerobics, and orienteering and pass in the city’s unification testing will earn extra 20 points as their main exam results for applying for high school study or university study.

Therefore, to extend the chances to apply for a better ranked university, young athletes play hard sport in middle schools and high schools. Professional basketball player Xiaoyu Liu, who plays Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) League and is one member of the Chinese national basketball team, said his main reason of playing basketball in middle school and high school was that he could apply for a better university with his basketball ability which was common among young athletes who play sport during school time.

Because of the reasons above, middle schools and high schools in China can attract young talented athletes to build their school sports teams competing in different level sports events especially for some schools with sport features like 104 Middle School and 11 High School that both have good coaches and strong basketball teams.  Young talented athletes get training from school and compete in school league events with the hope they can be selected by sport clubs and national teams. Xiaoyu Liu was also a good school sport model who performed highly in the Nike 2004-2005 High School Basketball League and selected by the Chinese famous basketball club.

 Becoming a professional athlete

 Smith thinks that there are lots of opportunities for young athletes to become professional athletes through local clubs in Australia. They can get the chance for state competition and therefore sometimes they can be selected into national sports teams or national training. Through school system now especially the high school system, there are a lots of competitions for example, rugby league, the school competition, they have part on TV and they are quite high competition and a lot of players are selected into under 18s and under 20s like the Sydney teams.

 However, it still depends on what sport they play and where the clubs or schools are located. For other sports, young athletes can do sports testing to get the chance to play professional sport. If their results are good enough, they will be selected for academic sports program training and finally perhaps the national teams. Young athletes who want to play state team soccer as an example in ACT can catch the opportunity through the training sessions and testing for them. At the last, stronger players can be selected to compete for the national teams.

 John Forrest hosted test event this year which was called ACT’s Fastest and Fittest Junior Athletes sanctioned by Cycling Australian to select fastest and fittest junior athletes for ACT Academy of Sport programs. He said young athletes can get themselves some more opportunities to try new sport through a variety of testing for speed, strength and endurance.

 Jordan Nicholls, who play soccer in a local club, said he wanted to try field and tracks after the ACT’s Fastest and Fittest Junior Athletes Testing.

 There are physical tests organized by the Chinese Ministry of Education and State Sport General Administration for school students. The results can be taken into consideration when young athletes seek opportunities to play professional sport. Besides that, there is similar selecting testing compared with Australia for talented young athletes to compete in the national sports events. However, the coaches play a main role in the selecting in Chian’s testing

 Young players in China who get training for professional sports competitions living off home will generally have poorer social support and inadequate recovery strategies compared with young players in Australian who are living at home.

 Support Australian young elite athletes

For Australian young athletes, they can also get the similar benefit for applying for university studies if they play sport hard during their study in year 11 and 12 comparing with the policy from Chinese Ministry of Education and State Sport General Administration. However, policies vary from university to university, state to state in Australia.

Take University of Canberra as an example, Student Equity and Access Manager Laurie Boal explained how it worked.

Athletes students can be identified and recognised as such by one of the following organisations or programmes: Australian Institute of Sport, State Institutes or Academies of Sport, AFL Players Association, Australian Cricketers Association, Rugby Union Players Association, Rugby League Professionals Association, Australian Professional Footballers Association, National senior squad members from Coach and Athlete Career and Education (CACE)-supported sport, Coach Career Management Program, SCOPE Program and can provide the University of Canberra Admissions Centre with a letter accompanied by a supporting statement from the relevant sporting body explaining why they believe their sporting commitments have affected their study in years 11 and 12, they can get a five extra point which will make difference for applying to university study and scholarship.

 Additionally, special consideration applies during their study in the university, like if athletes are away for several weeks for training and competing and miss lectures and assignments deadline, they can talk to their course convenors and can get help from Academic Skills Program.

 Conclusion

Although the children and young people play different sport in Australia and China, team sport is relatively popular than individual sport in both countries because team sport is enjoyable with a social dimension.

There are two systems of school sport and club sport for children and young people to play organised sport in Australia. Young athletes can play high-level sport through clubs although it varies from state to state and sport to sport. Australian parents show their great support to club sport as they think clubs can also provide an opportunity for parents themselves to meet friends.

Club sport is currently a new trend in China on the way of developing while school sport is an important way for Chinese children and young people to play organized sport and also for some of them who have the hope they can be selected for the national training through school sport system or amateur sport school. That is partly because Chinese government put more pressure on school sport.

Testing is another way for young athletes to be selected for professional sports training, national or even international competition in Australia and China.

Both countries show their support to elite young athletes with special consideration for their applying to the university study and during their study in the universities.

Sources

Kate Smith

Phone: +61 (0)2 6201 5622

Email: kate.smith@canberra.edu.au

Jacqui Bachelard

Phone: +61 (0)29983 9523

Email: jacquibach@iprimus.com.au

John Forrest  

Email: john.forrest@act.gov.au

Laurie Boal

Phone +61 (0)2 6201 2333 

Email: laurie.boal@canberra.edu.au

Robert Mereno

Phone: +61 (0)29820 7529

Email:  coachadmin@epsc.com.au

Jordan Nicholls

Phone: +61 (0)450 958 504

Stand by to take off

Soccer is one of the most popular team sports among children and young people in Australia according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Young players can get more support from soccer clubs than another organized sports system, school sports teams. That is because there is a critical lack of sports coaches and equipment in school and the school is not interested in their results. Children meet their lifelong friends playing sport in a club and the adults also meet good friends along the way. School holiday soccer camps are always welcomed by children and their parents.

Additionally, players can practice their soccer skills through participating in junior soccer games competing with different soccer clubs with the hope that they can be selected for national training.

By Dongyan Wang

Therefore, I am confident that there are enough raw materials to produce news-based content to target the whole family in the local communities and sustain the participation into the market.

In my opinion, there is still space in the market for junior club soccer. Taking holiday soccer camping as an example, they can have different packages for different age groups. The package for kids can welcome their parents in the whole activities. For talented soccer players, the package should focus on improving their soccer skills.

Junior soccer clubs and event organizations can cooperate to seek more opportunities for their players. They can invite the national soccer team coaches to watch junior soccer competitions or invite the national team players to play soccer with their boys. They can build junior soccer events’ reputation as well as attract local media through those activities.

It is not far away to start a sponsorship with local sponsors or even famous sponsors.

Qantas Joeys in AFC U-16

As I talked in my last several posts that I am interested in the junior club soccer. There is a good example online I can trace that Qantas Joeys, a talented Australian junior soccer team, participated in AFC U-16 Championship qualifier matches during the September of 2011. Joeys’ performance has been widely discussed on the field of Junior Soccer because they are the future of the Australia’s soccer and they can get the ticket to the World Cup through their performance in a serial of international soccer matches. It is also the future for young talented athletes who play soccer in the local clubs with the hope they can be selected for international competition.

It is not a good open for Qantas Joeys as they have been defeated 2-3 by the host nation Thailand in their opening match of the AFC U-16 Championship qualifier at the Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok on 13th September 2011.

While Qantas Joeys defeated Hong Kong 1-0 in their AFC U-16 Championship qualifier match at the Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok on 18th September 2011 on the next stage of the games.

The hot weather was also mentioned for the match between Australia and Hong Kong because Australian players were not used to the hot weather compared with Hong Kong players.

Things went  to good for the Qantas Joeys after they defeated Guam 10-0 in their AFC U-16 Championship qualifiers match at the Debhatsadin Stadium in Bangkok on 20 September 2011.

Australia qualified for the AFC U-16 Championship after defeating Indonesia 5-2 at the Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok and finishing second in Group G of qualifying. The results are widely discussed on the twitter feed.

According to the AFC, the U-16 Championship Qualifiers, each group will play one round league and the top two teams from each group will progress to the AFC U-16 Championship 2012.

Additionally, the qualified teams can guarantee a place to the 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup which will be held in the United Arab Emirates in October/November.

Target You

It is important to participate in organized sport for children social development as well as coordination skills, teamwork and physical fitness. The awareness is increasing among parents, scholars and educators as the new trend that children are spending more time on watching TV and using computers.

According to Children’s Participation in Organized Sporting Activity, Oct 2009 from Australia Bureau Statistics, 1.7 million (63%) children participated in at least one organized sport outside of school hours, in the 12 months to April 2009. Participation in organized sport was highest among 9 to 11 years old at 68% compared with 58% for 5 to 8 year old and 65% for 12 to 14 year old. Participation rates were higher for boys across all age groups compared with girls, with the greatest difference being between 12 to 14 year old (boys 74% compared with girls 55%).

In 2009, the most popular organized sport for children was swimming, with a participation rate of 19%. This was followed by outdoor soccer at 13% and Australian Rules football at 8.6%.

That means soccer is still the most popular team sport among children and young people in Australia. Age and gender groups should also be taken into consideration when you target the children and young people.

Football Development Australia runs a program called FDA School Holiday Football Camps for boys and girls aged 6-14 from NSW in October 2011 is a good example in the area of my interest.

FDA target parents who want their children to play some organized soccer, have fun and make friends instead of watching TV and playing computer games during their school holiday. Children and young people are also exited to develop soccer skills in camps in the same sports jersey, shorts and socks with their mates. FDA also successfully targeted Hotel Formula 1 and Gatorade for advertising through the programs. The camping boys will also become their potential clients to join their soccer club team.

What kind of media content for junior club soccer

As my area of interest is junior club soccer, the soccer clubs will update training times every week or season, game news, every event they will hold or encourage the boys and their parents to participate. The club news on their own websites will be text matched with images or even videos especially for promotional purpose taking advantage of multimedia.

Most junior soccer clubs will build their clubs’ tradition and culture through putting materials like the titles they claimed before, feature stories about past and current excellent teams or players. It is also a great part of content on their websites. Images like team photos and player photos probably are the powerful form of content because junior players and their parents want see their photos on the website and show them to their friends and relatives.

The junior soccer clubs are also starting to open a facebook home page or twitter home page to promote their clubs as well as provide a space for communicating with players and their parents. There is brief information on twitter feed while images are also a big part on the facebook home page. That is because children and young people love the simple but powerful way to express themselves which is also agreed by my internship supervisor Capital Football Media & Public Relations Manager Russ Gibbs who was media contact for 2011 Kanga Cup teenager soccer games. It is also easy to bring a digital camera than a video camera.

The form of content is similar among junior soccer event organizations’ published materials within their websites, face book home page, twitter home page and ground newsletters.

Text, text matched with images and powerful images with simple words are the common content taking a great part. Video stories also take certain part.

Who to follow online

For my area of interest, I am focusing on junior club spot. To make it narrow, it is junior soccer club sport.

Junior soccer clubs and event organizations with their own official websites or facebook home page in ACT and New South Wales are the first sources I want to follow online like Northbridge Soccer Club aiming to develop well rounded young Australians through the proper football environment, Belsouth Fury Soccer Club  encouraging  parents and caters to participate with their kids, Queanbeyan FC which also have junior teams and Capital Football which organizes junior soccer events in Canberra every year as examples. The clubs update club and matches news and training activity information on their websites.

By Dongyan Wang

Coaches and referees in ACT and New South Wales with their twitter accounts and blogs online both belong to soccer clubs or soccer event organizations are another source for me like Kanga Cup Ref which updates posters on blog and twits on twitter (Kanga Cup Ref) to share experience during the event every season.

The main reason I follow them online is to gather the information for my own stories both supporting my points and being part of my story. The stories I am going to produce are about comparing every aspect like the equipments, the level of training and the styles of each club as well as soccer events to provide analyzed information for the families which have children are going to play soccer in the club environment in an objective way. The event organizations can also provide information about the club in their own way. The experience from the referees and coaches will probably built a picture about how the children will reflect through playing soccer and participating event games and the comments on their twitter feeds can support my opinion in some extend.

Junior soccer

Scholar Richard Light, who researched junior sport in his book Sport in the lives of young Australians which was published in 2008, pointed out that “organized sport in Australia is accessible for children and young people through the two systems of school sport and club sport while children” and young people will not participate in them unless these activities have meaning for them, are enjoyable, and have a social dimension.

By Dongyan Wang

In his study, boys’ soccer ability in general can provide them with confidence, self-esteem, a personal identity and a sense of security, a confirmation and extender of intra-family relationships, a way of building friendship, social relationships and networks, a sense of achievement and a sense of personal worth as they are growing up.

He also took the soccer as an example in his book to compare school sport and club sport for children and young people. There is a stark contrast between boys playing soccer in clubs with two to three times of training and a long season of games and playing soccer in a school’s soccer team with lack of organized training and interests in the boys’ results.

That is because there is a critical shortage of teachers who are interested in inter-school sport and who are prepared to coach teams and lack of resources for school sport which makes the boys feel they cannot get enough support for the school soccer team but boys can still enjoy the opportunity to extend their friendships according to Light.

For boys who play soccer in clubs, they focused on their soccer ability with more mature and fuller participation. As a result, their playing ability provide them with valued physical capital that give them social positions in the club and will gain important cultural knowledge in the future.

Who cares about junior club sport?

Parents whose children play sports in clubs will care about junior club sports and probably writing articles in their blogs if they want to exchange information with other parents on line.

Clubs who run Junior club sports business will definitely do their best to attract parents and teenagers with materials and stories about junior club sports published on their websites, posters and newsletters.

By Dongyan Wang

Event organizations that target clubs will publish materials before or after their sports events to service the event with the hope even to attract other public media. Take Capital Football in Canberra as an example, which host Kanga Cup every year to attract junior football clubs crossing the whole nation or even overseas. They put stories, pictures and videos on their event website for promoting their event activity and informing the public. They also have face book home page, twitter and produce newsletters during  the ground matches to highlight their events.

Because of the high-level involvement of the whole family especially in soccer, both clubs and event organizations will publish materials targeting parents and teenagers as well as other media.

Focus on junior soccer which is a very popular sport but teenagers feel more satisfied in playing in the club environment than playing at school according to researches whether in physical education classes or informal games in the playground , we can draw the conclusion more easily in Australia.

Besides clubs and event organizations, newspapers, radio and TV programs and websites which want to cover junior soccer to target parents will publish materials and stories in this area. Take newspaper as an example, if it has a column catering development of teenager club sports will probably produce soft or feature stories. Teenager health scholars, educators even some parents themselves will produce analysis, reports and other statistic materials in this area.

Family sport

The number of parents who want their children to play sport in a club is increasing by kinds of reasons. We can call this form of sports family sports because the whole family can achieve their purpose from club sport.

As what I have known, some of the parents think their children need some physical practice for health; some of them think it is a good way to make friends even long-life friends through playing sport in a club environment; some the others think it is also a good way for the parents themselves to make friends and exchanging experience in education children and only a few parents want their children play sport with the hope that they can play professional sports in the future. Besides the parents’ purpose, teenagers themselves also love playing sports in a club although some of the teenagers only play sport in school.

By Dongyan Wang

Therefore, junior sports clubs are popular among teenagers in Australia. To make it narrow, teenagers who play soccer in a club as an ideally example for my study because soccer is first popular sport with 22% in Australia among teenagers boys according to Australian Bureau of Statistics (2003) Sport and Recreation and girls also like soccer as a team sport.

However, there are still a series of questions hanging on my mind: what do the junior sports clubs do to attract teenagers and their parents? How to run a junior soccer club? What level of sport they play? Is there any sports event between different clubs and what are the events?  What are the differences between sports clubs and school sport? Is there any policy for sports clubs and what is it? What will club sports do to teenagers and why they can do that?

Twitter for journalists

In the media age, Twitter liking a mini blog is becoming a real time reporting tool to attract every citizen in the world. Twitter users can get the information they are interested in directly instead of relying on the editors’ selecting on the newspaper. They can share the links of reporting of others as well as publish their own works such as contributing pictures with news value (especially in disaster like Japan’s earthquake, revolution like Egypt’s revolution and war) in their own Twitter account to build their own audience. Now that there is no doubt about the power of Twitter as a social network reporting tool in the world, why don’t professional journalists take advantage of it?   Actually, they do.

By Fanie

According to Posetti (2010), Twitter is now a vital tool for journalists to report events as breaking down barriers between legacy media and its audiences. Clark (2011) also agrees with the power of Twitter as a reporting tool for journalists after following a series of tweets covering the earthquake disaster in Haiti by Joanna Smith, a Toronto Star reporter. Clark said tweets were like mini-serial narratives. Because of the Twitter’s mini-serial style, we can quickly learn the news, follow the debate and join the conversation if we wish according to Scott (2010).

The mini-serial style of Twitter gives the audience a quick start but the fact that people are interested in news, in debates and in ideas contribute to the continue of the conversation (Scott, 2010). What’s more, they are curious, and appreciate great stories and many are “leaning forward”, paying close attention, wanting to participate according to Scott. Stott also point out that Twitter makes it possible for people to access stories at the time they want, on the device they want, in the format they want only if they have a computer or a phone. For journalist, they can take this advantage to connect with audiences by creating compelling content instead of from letters to the editor since the 18th century and talkback radio since the late 1960s. O’Connor (2009) also agreed that informal Internet communication is “certainly expanding and becoming a more important part of the media diet”.

If what people report is good enough with news value or interests to attract others to engage with them in their community, it may well begin to build an audience and lead a conversation as a result. That is also a good way to build the journalists’ own brand (Scott, 2010). According to Scott’s personal experience, Twitter reminds him of sitting in the newsroom, watching the feeds come in from the world’s great media organisations such as Reuters, Dow Jones and Associated Press. That means anyone, simply by following their Twitter feeds, can get the news story from these great media organisations no matter where they are. The young journalists can also learn from the sense of news from them and find sources for their own story.

On the other hand, we can also add links to the mini-serial narratives which can extend the audience’s reading if they are interested in these reports. Scott (2010) pointed out that 25 per cent of all Tweets contain links which is one of the most useful things of Twitter. Some of the links are articles about the particular topic and some others lead to pictures and videos. If the links are too long because of the limited words for each twitte, we can shorten the links by bitly. Twitter users can also have Twitpic account to post photos or videos from your phone, from the site, or through email and Twitgoo account to upload from your mobile phone via email! Below demonstrates the use of bitly.

1. Sign in and get personalized stats for your bitly links

2. Click on the Info+ link and watch clicks stats and more in real time.

3. Tweet right from the Sidebar without leaving the page you’re on (must be signed in with a linked Twitter account).

4. Keep checking back on the Sidebar to see updated Click stats, and stats for all clicks to the same long link.

5. See in real time who else is talking about this page on Twitter, FriendFeed and blog comments

Another advantage of the interactive media like Twitter is getting people information they wanted and needed in real time (O’Connor, 2009). The good example is the Australian conservative party’s leadership in November 2009 which became known simply by its Twitter hashtag, #spill given by Posetti (2010). She pointed out that “the conservative leadership spill, which unfolded in real time over two of the longest weeks in the history of the Liberal-National coalition, highlighted the emergence of a new form of political communication via Twitter”. In some other situations like the flood in Queensland, Twitter can get the information early than the mainstream media. The example above also mentioned that hashtag which is designed for people to search tweets in common topic.

However, O’Connor (2009) argues that “How can any of us be sure that the news and information we see and hear is true? Which reports and reporters can we trust and rely on to be credible? How can we find them amidst the clangour and the clutter of ‘TMI’-too much information?” In other words it is more difficult to distinguish truth and fiction. He also point out the trend that Twitter users report what they gets from more eclectic groups than before.  However, Posetti (2010) argued that “while journalists continue to re-examine professional fundamentals as they negotiate their way through the Twitterverse, they, in general, view the benefits of the platform as outweighing the risks”.

As a journalism student, I started my Twitter account at the beginning of this year to enrich my studying in the media area.  I use hashtag, #abj, to see my classmates’ experience in broadcasting which inspired me in producing my TV story. I also share links of useful tips on producing a TV story and news story ideas with the hashtag of abj.  As a result, I got feedback and comments from my classmates and tutor.  Sometimes I re-twitt some good ones from people I following. I also join several lists to get the particular information and create a list for myself.  I argue with others if I am interested in the story on Twitter. I like the feeling when I open the Twitter pages to see the feeds come in because I will know what do my friends care about; what they are doing and the updated news in the world.

However, the journalists can use Twitter for a wide range of activities according to Posetti (2010).

Tweeting breaking news

Live-tweeting from media conferences

Posting pictures to illustrate the atmospherics

Offering opinions

Monitoring key political players’ Twitter feeds

Linking to long-form stories on their outlets’ websites and, critically, to those of their competitors

Discussing story updates and journalistic processes with their colleagues, competitors and followers

Interacting with the public

Posing questions to politicians or passing comments directed at them via the medium

 That does not mean you can twitt what you want especially for journalists who want to build their band on Twitter through what they twitt. The most important thing is thinking before you twitt. Posetti (2010) also gave Top 20 Take Away Tips for Tweeting Journos which are included in the last link in this blog.

Bibliography:

Clark, RP (2011) How journalists are using Facebook Twitter to write mini-serial narrative: http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/newsgathering-storytelling/writing-tools/115607/how-journalists-are-using-facebook-twitter-to-write-mini-serial-narratives/

O’Connor, R (2009). “World of Mouse: Credibility, Journalism and Emerging Social Media”. Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Policy. Discussion Paper Series. #D-50, February 2009

Posetti, J (May 2009-May 2010) Twitter Journalism Series PBS Mediashifthttp://www.pbs.org/mediashift/julie-posetti/

Scott, M The Drum ABC (2010) “The Golden Age for Australian Journalism”http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/25/3075798.htm