Competition and coexistence of sports media: the case of watching the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games^*

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 66th International Communication Association Annual Conference, Fukuoka Japan, June 9–13, 2016.

ABSTRACT

This study was performed in the context of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games to examine the patterns of competition among television sets, personal computers, and mobile devices in gratifying audiences of one of the world's greatest sporting event. In light of the theory of niche, three measures of niche – niche breadth, niche overlap, and competitive superiority – were examined. Of the major findings, personal computers appeared to overlap the most with, and were superior to mobile devices in fulfilling socialization and diversion gratifications. These findings indicate personal computers are, at least partially, replacing mobile devices with respect to socialization and diversion gratifications. In comparison, the television set appeared to overlap the most with, and was superior to the personal computer in fulfilling the eustress, aesthetic, learning, and self-esteem gratifications. These findings indicate that television sets remain the dominant medium for fulfilling these four gratification dimensions.

KEYWORDS:

• Niche theory
• Olympic
• sports media
• gratifications
• cross-media

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 66th International Communication Association Annual Conference, Fukuoka Japan, June 9–13, 2016.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund of 2015.