Distance Learning Assignment

Spending the last few hours checking out the timeline and tweets on the several twitter sides about the PSU scandal, I came up with three common themes. One theme that really stood out to me was how some fans were so shocked by the firing of Paterno’s and didn’t want to realize that what he did was wrong. The second theme I picked out after reading through a lot of tweets was basically the complete opposite of the first one. It’s about why Paterno didn’t take any actions right away when he first found out about it. The last theme consists of two themes. On the one hand the people who didn’t show any support for the victims and on the other hand the people who showed a lot of heart and felt sorry for the victims.

The first time I read about the scandal was actually on a Germany website. I think the social media and the web shaped the PSU scandal to a worldwide event. Social media is the reason that this story became so big over the last few days. Websites like facebook and twitter spread new news around the world within seconds. The social media might also be part of the reason that the firing of the coach happened so fast. The university had no time to think about the issue or keep it quiet for a while. The news about Sandusky spread out so quickly and new stories, if true or not, showed up on the social media sides. The social media allows people to constantly talk about what happened and gives people the chance to communicate and talk about it. The social media definitely shaped the PSU scandal to what it is right now. I am sure that if the same things would have happened ten to fifteen years ago it would have went a total different direction in the media.

It is pretty obvious that the media moved the main focus away from Sandusky onto the firing of Joe Paterno. I don’t really understand why the social media made that move towards Paterno because Sandusky is clearly the one who was completely wrong with his actions. The only reason I can see why the media shifted its focus to Paterno is that people are more interested to read more about him then Sandusky.

Personally, I think social media is a mostly positive and very powerful tool when it comes to sports management. It gives companies and people the opportunity to communicate worldwide. It is a great way to connect with people; one would normally never reach out to. Companies have the opportunity to contact people all over the globe and make them aware of their business. It’s a great chance to expand as a company in a more effective way. The only downside is that if something goes wrong in one’s business the whole world will know about it a few seconds later. Social media gives people the chance to speak about any topic and it allows them to share their opinions with the whole world.