What is it about?
AFL professional league is trying to support their umpires (referees) to ensure grassroot competitions attract enough umpires for the game to flourish. The AFL uses the media channels to provide positive umpire images to improve umpire reputation and build a strong brand in order to recruit lower-league umpires.
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Why is it important?
This paper is important as it highlights the certain power of media to particular audiences, and how a major sport and media influence, like the AFL, can manipulate the media conversations to its advantage.
Perspectives
Many sporting leagues around the globe have issues with the public reputation of their officials for the game. It is the nature of sport, that one supporter goup is OK with the referees, while the losing team is often disappointed with the referees.How referees are supported by the administration in the media is often in contrast to the way the sport commentators view the referees' performance.
Robert Gill
Swinburne University of Technology
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Influence of Media Platforms on Sport Reputation: An Australian Football League Case Study, Journal of Sports Media, January 2018, Project Muse,
DOI: 10.1353/jsm.2018.0005.
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