Steps towards the Research Report on Online Cricket Writing

Timezones and Target Markets

are related to Indian cricket tend to receive more views, as they are directed to an enormous market of cricket fans, as well as often being timely and released while they are playing in a series or recently after. Something I have noted about Jarrod’s work is that it is often released within a quite specific timezone, so that while the content is new it will go out to viewers and readers particularly located in India, England and Australia, as these three are major in terms of cricket following and by releasing content when viewers are most likely to be awake and ready to respond and engage with the videos that are being made.

Watching and Listening suits my Persona

The main epiphany to come from my autoethnographic research was that listening to analysis while watching cricket, with the usually basic commentary muted, is a way of heightening my experience, and could affect how I make content. I feel that this is a reflection of my persona as someone who is able to understand and absorb a lot of information and jargon about the game at once as I have developed a lot of prior knowledge through the years. Members of the general viewing public and even those who are less inclined in my niche may not respond to content if I tried to encourage that they consume it while watching the players or game I was talking about.

Overall this gave me another perspective of modern sports media that I would like to continue to test against myself in the future.

Interactions with players

This epiphany may seem obvious, but interactions with players online for journalists like Neil and Jarrod can be huge in them receiving negative or positive receivership of a piece. I thought about this more deeply after reading this article from LaTrobe University, which discusses, amongst anything, the change in the physical relationship between a journalist and a player. In the article Narelle Harris notes that media teams within sports organisations often indicate who will speak to the press, and during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic this became even more stringent. The reason this has arisen is that Neil recently wrote a piece arguing that the South African team should have played more practice matches between Tests instead of playing golf, and when now-retired South African cricket legend Dale Steyn chimed in the posts viewership skyrocketed. It is not uncommon for ex-cricketers to throw their two cents in the ring, but to have a recently retired and very successful player who had played with many in the current team throw his opinion in saw the whole post become elevated on another level.