The aim of this essay is to explore the influence and power the British media has had on ex-footballer Fabrice Muamba’s near death experience in early 2012, during the FA Cup quarter-final match between Tottenham and Bolton. The Congolese born defensive midfielder suffered an extensive cardiac arrest during the forty-first minute of the tie. I am going to examine the significance of the positive impact which the media has had on the future of the sport after this dramatic event, including football transfer medical changes due to the ITV’s extensive coverage of the event. I will also be addressing changes in sport journalism for the good, and for the worse in the new contemporary media environment we now live in. The final focus of this essay is some of the negative media coverage due to social media and citizen journalism, and finding out why demands and expectations of sports organisations and fans have changed in the modern era, linking them to this incident.
ITV’s match coverage played a large role and influenced many positive outcomes from this event. One main outcome was the future of football transfer medicals. This unnerving incident which took place during The FA Cup was televised to millions of viewers all over the world. The quarter final match of this domestic trophy is massive in English football, and for a lot of fans across the globe, broadcasted to over one hundred countries today. The average audience for an FA cup match was 6.8 million for ITV’s broadcast of the 2011/12 competition (Plunkett, 2012). This shows the number of viewers who witnessed this horror scene during the Tottenham vs Bolton cup clash. All spectators were left shocked and awaited a post-match response from the media, soon after many news articles emerged. These then provoked arguments from many current and ex-footballers such as England international goalkeeper David James. He stated firmly that adding more heart screenings for players to prevent future cases similar to Muamba’s, are unnecessary and expensive (James, 2012). Despite this negative response from the media, the millions of viewers who either attended the match or watched on through ITV’s coverage almost instantly meant that there had to be some kind of positive changes to football medicals, or match day medics on site for example. If this incident happened in a lower tier conference game in front of fifty fans with very little to no media coverage, then the chances that the media would have an impact on changes to medical rules in Football transfers are very little to none. Journalist Rob Kemp released an article on the details of a modern football article in late 2016, he mentioned how medicals have changed following Fabrice Muamba’s heart attack. Stating how clubs must now be much more attentive when checking for any heart irregularities in players. All players under twenty-four years of age will now also have annual checks and tests, which will detect any heart related concerns (Kemp, 2016). This was the first high profile player who had from a cardiac arrest witnessed by millions; therefore, these great improvements to football transfer medicals were introduced by the large scale of coverage on behalf of the British media.
There have been many changes in the British media within the decade but more importantly in sport journalism, which helped to increase awareness of the Fabrice Muamba circumstance. This includes citizen journalism and modern technologies such as smart phones and multi-tasking laptops and tablets. Citizen journalism has now given ordinary people the opportunity to report events. According to broadcast specialists Brad Shultz and Ed Arke (2016) ‘A direct outgrowth of new technology, especially digital and Internet platforms, is the growth of citizen journalism’. They later went on to mention that citizen journalists are not accurate journalists, as they haven’t received any professional training or studied on how to be a reporter with the absence of ethical training. Bearing in mind the previous points from Shultz and Arke, it is worth indicating that the press was the only prism for communication of sports and more importantly football news when it was dominant in the early 2000s. As 31,000 fans watched on from White Hart Lane in 2012, it is evident from analysing and researching thousands of old tweets from social media giants Twitter, that a very large number of them were carrying smart phones with them at the time. This is where the demise of the press has led to the rise of Twitter and inevitably become a major source for new journalists including citizen journalists. Many of these spectators played a large role in making this sporting event a general news article with the high level of positive and negative responses. An article published shortly after the incident in 2012, has shamed a young user of a new contemporary change in sport journalism which is the introduction to Twitter. “The Swansea University student is alleged to have tweeted: 'LOL [Laugh out loud]. **** Muamba. He’s dead!!! #haha.'” (Telegraph staff and agencies, 2012). Another young man along with this one was similarly arrested for posting racist comments towards Fabrice Muamba on his social media feed. This specifically highlights the negative influence which the media has had within the professional sport industry from the evident untrustworthy “citizen journalists”. Social medias such as Twitter have enabled anyone with an account to bypass professional journalists and sports organizations with their own views on an event such as Muamba’s. The rise of twitter has also cut out the ‘middle man’ as people can communicate with their followers directly without having to go through any one or a filter.
In contrast to the contemporary media environment we now live in, if this FA Cup tie between Tottenham and Bolton was played in 1978 for example, the demand time for breaking news stories such as Muamba’s near death experience would be much slower to publicise in such a short amount of time, with people having to wait hours or even as long as the next morning in some cases to read the story. Expectations would definitely not be met on time like how we are used to today, and people would be much less aware of sport stories as they become news. The demands and expectations of sports fans and organisations are now incredibly high, with fans expecting to read a new sports article or event which occurred during a match every time they open Twitter or Facebook. This also links to many sports news channels such as Sky and BBC Sport, they have to deal with news hungry viewers by updating their television programmes hundreds of times a day. Focusing on the demands from Twitter, which is one of the largest social networking platforms in the world with over 328 million monthly active users (Dunn, 2017). Analysing the success of Twitter, there are three main reasons I have discovered on why the social media is such a global hit. Firstly, it is very easy to use and accessible to anyone with even the simplest computer knowledge, composing and viewing other people’s tweets can be accomplished in very east steps. The next reason for its success is the instant feedback ‘tweeters’ can receive from their posts and news they share. This may make them more aware and able to see what their followers would like to see shared from them in the future, and if they have made any factual errors in any of their current tweets. The final reason Twitter has become a major prism for news is that a lot of people including sports journalists now use Twitter to build a brand, either for an employer or their own. Anyone can do it with no restrictions, apart from the limitations of 140 characters in each tweet. This helps create mini snack bites of news for audiences and this links perfectly into the power which social media had on Fabrice Muamba’s collapse at White Hart Lane. The expectations of each football fan in the world were met almost instantaneously from the moment Muamba collapsed on the pitch. This was due to the instant response from the thousands of supporters who were attending the match at the time, with over hundreds of tweets within the duration of the affair. News spread rapidly fast and shortly after the match was abandoned, fans and news readers could see and hear what had happened from all around the world. As these spectators, players and football clubs were left shocked and awaited a response the British media, the influence that social media users had on more detailed and professionally written news articles was apparent.
It is clear from the above arguments that the British media did in fact play a large role in the positive changes to football transfer medicals, following Fabrice Muamba’s heart collapse in front of millions. The introduction to annual heart checks and tests for all players under the age of twenty-four was heavily influenced by ITV’s broad television coverage to millions of viewers. The modern-day changes to sport journalism and the introduction to citizen journalists in the contemporary media environment had also held a lot of power over the event, with the rise of Twitter and live updates of Muamba’s unfortunate heart failure. To conclude, it is undoubtable that people are more aware of possible heart issues thanks to the British medias publicity of the sporting event.