Mass Media and Promotion of Sport (Historical Perspectives)

Mass media and sport have long been associated. The role of mass media has always been vital in boosting any activity of sport. Media has got focal position particularly in communication of the fresh information, shaping viewpoint of the masses, and bringing live sport and the like other activities to the consumer at his/her convenience. In the present era, close interaction between the media and sport are indispensable. Both feed one another; sport needs publicity and mass approach to majority of the population, which media do, whereas media feeds on the sport news provided by the different activities of sport. Formerly print and electronic media, mainly consisting of newspapers, magazines, TV coverage, were the chief sources of media for the dispersal of information. But with the explosion of the IT technology and with the advent of internet, the horizon of the media has significantly been widened. Examining the available literature, this study is an effort to separately evaluate the impact of different tools employed as a source of interaction of the mass media with various aspects of sport.