Media has always had a profound affect on athletics specifically majors sports such as football, basketball and baseball. Understanding how the media shapes their views on players in different stories can somewhat sway viewers and fans of teams and players to have a better understanding of these athletes. Athletes have the ability to help or hurt their self image in the media but either remain under the microscope by reporters, fans and civilians around the world. Understandably so, many athletes in professional sports make a lot of money and do not uphold a good self-image by some of the mistake they make or things they have said to the media. Today, the recent boom in social media has taking this process a step further by allowing these players collegiate and professional to connect with people and a large scale with the push of a button. In essence becoming their own capable new sources with every tweet on twitter or post on Facebook. This raises the question of how the new rise in social media is effecting these organizations but specifically the players and how they go about managing this new wave of technology so that is does not have a negative impact on the players career. Talking with Justin Anderson of the University of Maryland football team I asked him how he felt the new social media affects him and his ability to be a collegiate athlete:
Looking into Justin's response there has been a recent issue with the University of Maryland football team and that is why I thought it would be appropriate to interview him on his take. Recently a player on the University of Maryland were suspended for the last football game of the season due to academic reasons and some players took to twitter to express their feelings about the suspension after it was made public. Then Dan Steinberg reporter for the Washington Post decided to write and Article about the recent suspension and the players reactions. The article made the players seem rebellious and against the suspension and caused a uproar in the UMD football community. Whether the players meant the tweets in a negative way there tweets can not be taking back and thousands of people are left to interpret the integrity of these players.
Here is another student athletes at the University of Maryland's respective opinion on the article and how they feel social media can affect these athletes:
Being a student athlete I understand the strains of being an athlete and having to watch what you post on social media. Most athletes say there are just normal people and deserve to be able to say whatever they feel on social media but this is far from the truth. When you are an athlete and a part of an organization you are representing something bigger than yourself so based on the information you put on these sites you as an individual will be judged along with whatever organization you associate yourself with. Due to this athletes in all of their respective sports from the collegiate to professional level need adhere to a certain personal conduct to not embarrass themselves, their family and the organizations in which they are briefly representing.
