Action Sports, Social Media, and New Technologies

Article Communication & Sport 2017, Vol. 5(5) 554-578 ª The Author(s) 2016 Action Sports, Social Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Media, and New DOI: 10.1177/2167479516638125 Technologies: Towards journals.sagepub.com/home/com a Research Agenda Holly Thorpe1 Abstract Action sport participants have always been actively involved in the consumption and production of niche cultural media. However, the proliferation of new media technologies is playing an evermore important role in the ongoing progression of skills among athletes and committed recreational participants, and building a sense of community among enthusiasts and audiences across local, national, and global contexts. More than repeating previous patterns, such media technologies are contributing to new relationships between corporations, action sporting bodies, and communities. This article sets out a research agenda for understanding new media developments in action sports. In the first part of this article, I detail how new digital media are being used by corporations, athletes, and everyday participants, and in so doing, are transforming the networks and connections within and across action sport communities. In the second, I describe how new media technologies such as GoPros™, camera drones, and GPS tracking devices are changing action sport experiences and the relationship between ‘‘human’’ and ‘‘nonhuman’’ sporting bodies. As well as revealing emerging issues, this article also poses a series of critical questions and challenges to researchers interested in contributing to new understandings of the latest media technologies in action sport cultures. 1 Te Oranga School of Human Development and Movement Studies, Faculty of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand Corresponding Author: Holly Thorpe, Te Oranga School of Human Development and Movement Studies, Faculty of Education, University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand. Email: [email protected] Thorpe 555 Keywords actionsports,socialmedia,newtechnologies,drones,corporation,media spectacles, digital embodiment Action sport cultural industries have long been at the forefront of new media tech- nological developments aimed at capturing the moving body in ways that are not only able to vividly capture the ‘‘thrills and spills’’ but also to evoke deeply affective responses among viewers (Booth, 2008; Borden, 2001; Wheaton & Beal, 2003). The emergence of new social and digital media technologies is playing an evermore important role in the ongoing progression of skills among action sports participants and building a sense of community among enthusiasts and audiences across local, national, and global contexts (Gilchrist & Wheaton, 2013; Thorpe, 2014). More than repeating previous patterns, however, such media technologies are contributing to new relationships between corporations, action sport bodies, and communities. In identifying emerging issues and new questions, this article sets out a research agenda for understanding new media developments in action sports. More than describing such developments, we need to consider what makes the usage of new media technologies in action sports unique, as well as their (perhaps unintended) implications on action sporting bodies and experiences. With the aim of identifying new trends and developments in media technologies in action sport cultures, and particularly user practices and subcultural relations, this article consists of two parts. In the first part, I detail how new digital media are being used by corporations, athletes, and everydayparticipants,andinsodoing,are transforming the networks and connections within and across action sport communities. Second, I describe how new media technologies such as GoPro™, camera drones, and GPS tracking devices are changing action sport experiences and the relationship between ‘‘human’’ and ‘‘nonhuman’’ sporting bodies. As well as offering an overview of emerging issues, this article also poses a series of critical questions and challenges to researchers interested in contributing to new understandings of the latest media technologies in action sport cultures. In so doing, it signals exciting opportunities for future action sport media and communications scholarship that reveals the increasingly complex relationships between new media technologies and action sporting bodies. It is important to note that while this is not an empirically focused article, it is based on a decade of ethnographic research on action sport cultures and media engagement (see, in particular, Thorpe, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2014; Thorpe & Ahmad, 2015). The Role of Social Media in Action Sport Communities Cultural sociologist John Tomlinson (2007) uses the term telemediatization to describe the ‘‘proliferation of communication technologies and media systems within the quotidian rhythms of social life,’’ a phenomenon that he believes has 556 Communication & Sport 5(5) ‘‘altered the ‘everyday flow of experience’’’ (p. 94). Drawing upon Tomlinson’s (2007) work, Paul Hutchins (2011) proclaims that tele-, meaning ‘‘at a distance,’’ is the ‘‘pivotal prefix here,’’ opening the possibility of real-time ‘‘presence at a distance’’ as a readily available method of interaction for social actors who form and maintain meaningful relationships in and through media systems, including websites, bulletin boards, social networking services, chat rooms, and online games and spaces. (p. 241) Indeed, these types of virtual interaction ‘‘weave relations between people known to each other through online interaction, offline contact, and more traditional forms of media representation and celebrity’’ (p. 241). While new media and technologies have supplemented rather than replaced ‘‘old’’ media forms, they are radically impacting on modes of communication and embodied experience in physical and digital spaces. Of particular significance here, new media technologies are impacting upon contemporary youths’ cultural allegiances and identities in local and trans- local contexts: offering instant communication across the world, new media technologies may have accelerated the dissolution of barriers of time and space, redefining notions of the global and local and offering possibilities for the development of new communities based on affinities of interest, politics or any form of cultural identity.(Osgerby, 2004, p. 193) Here my focus is less on the new communities enabled by online technologies, and more on how action sport participants who already identify with their sporting community via active participation (and consumption) in local and/or international contexts are using social and digital media to further ‘‘establish, cultivate, and maintain their social relationships’’ (Osgerby, 2004, p. 208) within local communities and across the global action sport culture. As various scholars have illustrated, action sport participants have always been actively involved in the consumption and production of niche and micro media (see Borden, 2001; Thorpe, 2008; Wheaton & Beal, 2003). However, the Internet and new media and communication technologies (e.g., smart phones) are playing an evermore important role in sharing information across borders and facilitating trans-local communication within and across action sport communities (Evers, 2015a, 2015b; Gilchrist & Wheaton, 2013; Kidder, 2012; Thorpe, 2014; Woermann, 2012). For example, the surfing website www.surfline.com attracts more than 1.5 million visitors from around the world each month. The European snowboarding magazine, Onboard, surveyed its readers (a total monthly audience of over 170,000) to find that 96% have access to the Internet, 93% use the Internet to catch up with snowboarding news and snow conditions, and 80% buy clothes and snowboard equipment online (‘‘OnBoard Media,’’ 2012). Before illustrating how action sport Thorpe 557 participants are consuming and utilizing new digital and social technologies for their own sporting, social and political purposes, however, it is worth briefly highlighting the continuing power of corporations in representing and (re)defining action sporting performances, aesthetics, and cultural dynamics. Thus, in the following part, I offer some brief insights into how corporations are utilizing digital and social media in their efforts to create, and connect with, action sport communities and consumers, before turning to consider how action sport participants are consuming, adopting, and adapting such technologies. Corporations, Social Media, and Action Sporting Spectacles As with many traditional sports (see Hutchins & Rowe, 2009, 2012), action sport– related events are increasingly being designed and choreographed for online audiences.1 The 2011 Vans Triple Crown surfing contest series, for example, set a new record for the action sports industry with more than 10.4 million online viewers during the event. 25–30% of whom watched the event online via competition appli- cations (apps) designed specifically for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch (Lewis, 2011). Nearly 10% (1.1 million) of these viewers streamed the event via their iPhones. Some action sport events have specifically designed Apps for iPhone, iPad, android mobile, and android tablet. For example, the latest X Games app features instant results, news, schedules, athlete bios, and live music from the summer and winter events, and guest information (e.g., venues, parking). The app touted the ‘‘Hype- meter’’ as its newest feature, a ‘‘built-in game that lets you

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