Introduction

The development of modern communication, which not only covered all spheres of human life, but also algorithmized the system of behavioral elements, of course, significantly affected the sports environment. Now it is impossible to separate the space of sports activity from sports communication, which, in turn, is an inseparable element of mass culture, a part of the global economy, and a structural link of socio-political communication at all its levels. In a digital environment (for example, on social networks), it becomes part of one-to-one personal communication. And in this case, we are no longer talking about fan communities (groups, pages, etc.), but about situational reflection on a sports event, to which the subject of the communicative act is indirectly related: one saw a message about the defeat/victory of a sports team, read a quote from an interview with an athlete, learned about a certain conflict situation in the world of sports events and the like. Mediatization of sports, which was named as an indefinite phenomenon at the beginning of the 2010s (^{Whannel, 2013}; ^{Waisbord, 2013}; ^{Lundby, 2014}; ^{Pedersen, 2017}), today has acquired a global scale and has become a subject of discussion not only at the practical level, but also at the level of conceptual and philosophical transformations (^{Birkner & Nölleke, 2016}; ^{Skey et al., 2017}; Nölleke & Scheu, 2017; Nölleke et al., 2020; ^{Frandsen, 2021}).

^{Skey (2017}), based on the work of ^{Ekstrom et al. (2016}), proposed an analysis of football communication on the so-called "medium-level concept": at the level of using various media platforms for watching and commenting football matches, as well as to disseminate knowledge about this game, its key aspects, "notably who and what matters, is informed by mediated interactions" (Skey et al., 2017, p. 5). In contrast to the theory of Hjavard (2008), which aims to view the general trends of social development through various perspectives and contexts, the Skey’s approach allows to look at sports communication in terms of constructivism and to see how sports adapt to the requirements of the media environment.

Also, appealing to the works of ^{Schulz (2004}); ^{Hepp et al., (2015}); ^{Deacon & Stanyer (2016}) and ^{Pashchenko (2021}), we link mediatization to three main communicative features of media: retransmission, symbolization, and commercialization. These are the functions that cause social transformations, create their own rules that affect all forms of social communication, and sometimes dominate over them (Altheide & Snow, 1979). The purpose of the article is to explain how the communicative specificity of the digital social media environment is changing the traditional Lasswell’s linear model.

Methods

Based on the methodology of ^{Wenxiu (2015}), we will try to trace the changes that occur in the structural units of Lasswell’s communication model. Wenxiu (2015) proposes to consider 5 components as follows:

We propose to review this set based on the material of 18 successful YouTube vlogs dedicated to football, which have an audience of more than 1.5 million followers, a successful commercial component, and a global scale of content distribution (see Table 1). The data on the the diversity of audience groups were taken directly from the channels. Commercial success was assessed using the service https://socialblade.com/ (data as of September 2021):

Table 1 Characteristics of YouTube channels 

Now YouTube has become the second most popular social media in the world after Facebook, and this makes the old-school journalists, in particular TV, to create channels on this platform. This allows them not to fall out of the information field, keep the audience’s attention by offering exclusive content, and also attract new viewers. Against this background, in the 2000s, a fundamentally new sports segment began to form on YouTube: infotainment video channels that produce near-sports content.

The leading feature of the global football discourse on YouTube is the dominance of the theme of the major European championships (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France) and European cups (Champions League and Europa League) (European Commission, 2015). According to Rivers and Ross (2019):

The English Premier League (EPL) is the most lucrative domestic football league in the world with the combined revenues for 2017/18 among the 20 EPL teams standing at £4.8 billion (a 6% increase from 2016/17) (…) the sustainable success of the game is more founded upon the participation of its grassroots custodians (i.e. the fans) who contribute to the health of the game through a range of emotional and financial economies". (pp. 1-2)

The fact of the dominance of this event field is confirmed by the metrics of the leading YouTube channels: among the leaders are the resources based on the sports content of the regions mentioned above. As a rule, interesting for the audience is not just the match of these championships as such, but the star players, teams, and coaches. For example, in England such clubs are Manchester City Football Club, Liverpool City Football Club, Manchester United Football Club, Chelsea Football Club, Tottenham Hotspur Football, and the players are Mohamed Salah, Kevin De Bruyne, Paul Pogba, Harry Kane, Cristiano Ronaldo and others. The Spanish brand is formed primarily by Real Madrid Club de Fútbol and Fútbol Club Barcelona. The Italian football discourse is actualized by the narrative of Juventus Football Club, Associazione Calcio Milan and Football Club Internazionale Milano. In fact, France is completely based on the PSG brand, as well as the personalities of Neymar, Ángel di María, Kylian Mbappé and Lionel Messi.

Results

Studying the Lasswell’s model taking into account the modern transformations of the digital journalistic space and taking into account ^{Wenxiu’s (2015}) proposals, we note that during traditional media practice the category of "Who?" in sports discourse was represented exclusively by experts who worked in official media (newspapers, magazines, radio or TV). As a rule, they were journalists, knew sports, had professional education and in-depth skills in the media (talking on camera, writing text, etc.). Also, there might be former or nowadays stars of a certain sport, who did not have a journalistic education, but were considered absolute professionals in their field, which made their opinion authoritative. Today, this approach is almost completely retained in traditional media. Consider the BBC’s experience of using one of the best English footballers in the history, Harry Lineker, as host of Match of the Day and sports commentator (^{Parker, 2017}).

However, the massive spread of the Internet has become the reason for the rapid development of new channels for transmitting information (including sports). In particular, technologies have given impetus to the development of user-generated content. This principle underlies social media and is a fundamental condition for their existence and monetization. It should be stated that generation of content for social networks does not require special expensive equipment, studio, and production crew. Attributes that were previously available only to large TV companies are now available to everyone. Modern gadgets have enough power to shoot video in HD quality and take high-quality photos, and the worldwide network erases the boundaries for dissemination of information. These particular conditions led to growing of popularity of amateur vlogs, which outranked professional channels in terms of audience size. The most popular soccer YouTube channel “F2Freestylers - Ultimate Soccer Skills Channel” is hosted by two soccer players Jeremy Lynch and Billy Wingrove, not by sports commentators which was common practice for the traditional journalism.

Now the “who” category can be divided into 2 large groups:

The latter's role has radically transformed over the past several decades, especially within the sports discourse, because now users can give public feedback to viewed content through comments or ratings (likes on posts or videos, dislikes, reactions, etc.). This, in turn, affects the popularity of the authors and automatically transfers them into the sphere of permanent struggle for the audience's attention. In addition, users can be both content producers and consumers at the same time, which makes communication richer.

The transformation of the roles of the subjects of communication is typical for the entire digital environment. The idea of prosumerism, which ^{Toffler (1981}) talked about at the time, forms the basis for the social media algorithm, where user-generated content has the same recognition as professional content. At the same time, the process of content production in digital sports journalism is influenced not only by the factors of the event environment, the author's understanding of the news and format requirements, but also by the so-called “custom order”: followers order this or that post / video / message, this or that topic, or another genre / format, one or another character, etc. Therefore, changing the content of the “who” category affects the understanding of other components of the Lasswell’s model.

The “Says What?” element has traditionally been influenced by a clear system of genres that have been formed throughout the entire period of media development. However, the emergence of online has completely erased the user understanding of a distinct structure of the material and a clear framework for its construction. This is especially true of sports discourse, the system of which is so extensively ramified that it is quite difficult to determine the exact number of content formats and ways of transmitting information, even with a deep study of the problem. On the example of the YouTube, which is a de facto continuation of television, it is possible to clearly trace the transition of content to a non-standard structure, determined by the author. Today, we can only distinguish between very general formats, such as "news and views video", "review", "interview" and others. The theoretical basis for building a genre system of video on YouTube is formed by the studies of ^{Ekenel and Semela (2011}), that propose to first of all pay attention to “audio-visual features and the classification framework, which both contribute to achieve a higher performance” (p.549).

Taking as reference the classical genre theory like ^{McQuail & Deuze (2020}) and comparing it with what YouTube offers, it turns out that only the fundamentals have survived. For example, in the case of the interview genre, the platform left unchanged only the presence of persons between whom a dialogue or monologue takes place. Everything else like thematic vector, structure, the presence of additional locations, requisites, interlocutors etc. may undergo changes. It should be noted that within the framework of sports discourse, content delivery is often based on the principle of combining the characteristics of different genres in one text. For example, news releases are accompanied by analytics, and reviews, due to emotional presentation, become visually like comments.

And besides, YouTube, like other social networks, often completely rejects editorial moderation. Each channel has certain rules, which, for example, prohibit posting videos of a sexual or racist nature. However, by ticking the corresponding box "18+", authors can freely use obscene language in the videos or speak directly about the problems of a particular area, which is not always acceptable for traditional media. This feature allows YouTube sports discourse to be more varied, open, and critical.

This study found that YouTube sports content has several mainstreams. We propose to define them as follows: professional video blogs, training videos and informational stories (see Table 2).

Category of Lasswell's model "In Which Channel?". The answer to this question is partially outlined in the previous subparagraphs. Today, the Internet is becoming the main channel for transmitting information. It is the worldwide network that can be considered the leading medium of modern sports discourse. Usually, the Internet is understood only as a system of informational websites and social networks, but this interpretation is too narrow.

The Internet has become a universal platform that combines print media, radio and even television. Moving from watching videos on TV to watching videos on a smartphone does not mean that television is a thing of the past. Indeed, today TV is gradually losing popularity against the background of social networks. In particular, the analytical company Forrester conducted a study that says that by 2025 50% of people under 32 will not use Pay TV (^{McQuivey, 2017}).

However, modern conditions are not destroying, but transforming traditional TV. The TV channels become available on special services; their broadcast network remains regulated and static, but the technical features of the platforms allow viewers to return to an individual broadcast in the broadcast network and watch it in the recording at any time. Similar changes also apply to radio and print media. Listening and reading them are often available online. Joanne Kuzma announced the changes that will gradually radically change the traditional environment of sports communication back in 2014 (Kuzma et al., 2014).

It is also worth noting the trend of gradual convergence of traditional media and social networks. In particular, this applies to television and YouTube. Thanks to its historical role, it is still possible to watch on television what is not available on social networks. In the case of sports, we are talking about online broadcasting of sports events (sometimes - parallel broadcasts of various events at the same time). However, today, even in this area, television cannot be considered an absolute monopolist.

There are cases when sports events are broadcast live exclusively on YouTube. For example, the Ukrainian YouTube channel "FOOTBALL HUB", which was created by the community of former employees of the national TV channel "2 + 2", was able to obtain the rights to show some matches of the Ukrainian Premier League and broadcast them live. And during the first global lockdown due to COVID-19, the channel was able to obtain the rights to broadcast the championship of the Republic of Belarus - one of the few championships held from April to June 2020 (UA-Futbol, 2020).

In addition, in the post-Soviet space, YouTube is used by professional football clubs in lower leagues to broadcast their own matches. The relatively low level of interest among the audience does not allow such teams to sell TV channels the right to broadcast their own matches. That is why clubs are forced to popularize the match and the club's brand through public broadcasts on YouTube. As a rule, such live broadcasts are accompanied by a video sequence from one or several cameras, and the broadcast is conducted by a commentator, as is the case on television.

The cross-media nature of activity, which today is an effective way of mass media development, forces to take into account in the production of sports news the communicative specifics not only of the online environment as such, but also the features of each digital resource used by media (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, etc.). According to ^{Hayes (2010}), the first two levels of cross-media, cross-media 1.0 “pushed” and cross-media 2.0 “extras”, can no longer compete effectively with cross-media 3.0 “bridges” and cross-media 4.0 “experiences”. Jeremy Lynch and Billy Wingrove promote their ideas through YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and various sites. Each channel not only expands the audience, but also adds extra content and scale to the stories, prolongs their potential and enhances the effectiveness of athletes' media brands.

Element of Lasswell's model "To Whom?". The development of the media system showed a tendency of boundaries and barriers to information to be gradually erasing. By the time radio or television was invented, humanity received news from print media that often obeyed a specific regional principle (for example, a city's newspaper) or took a long time to spread over long distances. A little later, radio and television made it possible to spread information much faster and over longer distances, but the transmission process was not smooth. The transmission of television and radio signals was limited to the territory of a particular country or region, or, for example, by the features of the relief or weather. These changes are schematically presented in works of ^{Hancherick (2011}).

Today, thanks to online format, a system was created where there are practically no physical barriers to the transmission of information. Anyone can join the communication process from any part of the planet. All you need is a gadget with network access. The factor of different time zones or the precise binding of a particular program at a fixed time in the broadcasting schedule no longer plays a role, as does the factor of distance. Information can be read, watched, or listened to at any time, an unlimited number of times and in any country (with the exceptions dictated by the policies of individual states, for example, the DPRK). Language remains the only barrier today, but it is gradually fading into the background thanks to the large amount of English-language content, translations or subtitles that can be added to any video on YouTube.

The organization of social media as interpretive platforms abolishes unicast linear communication. The maximum involvement of all participants of the communicative interaction to the news production transforms the algorithm for the functioning of sports discourse. It develops simultaneously, both vertically (from the primary post to building its reflexive system) and horizontally (other posts appear around the main post and are capable of both turning into independent ones, and switching the main plot lines, and modify the basis of the primary narrative). The phenomenon of self-reproduction of social networks, in particular YouTube, builds communications without a center and devalues the traditional levers of control (even editorial policy), based only on the functionality of the network and the initiative of the participants in the communicative act.

Category "With What Effect?". Now this question looks one of the least unambiguous of all the ones presented above. On the one hand, we state an increase in the effectiveness of information, since the dissemination of network data in space occurs instantly, and a person is constantly inside the information flow. The content is becoming more diversified, and its volume is increasing every minute. In such conditions, it is much easier to work with information and obtain the necessary data. Moreover, modern technologies allow you to set up instant delivery of the necessary information directly to the selected gadget. This became possible thanks to the notification system, which is implemented in all social networks and on other platforms (applications with the publication of news, the results of sports events, etc.).

The information space is being transformed so that today sports or any other news can be learned both from analytical textual materials and from humorous static images (in particular, memes). All this significantly changes the approach to the process of obtaining information, since now companies need not only to fight for an audience, but also to make sure that information is delivered in a timely manner. As Billings notes, "people seek out different social media platforms for different reasons pertaining to personality traits, motivational desires, and gratifications sought" (Billings et al., 2016, p. 551).

In terms of effects, the interactive component is not only a visual reflection of the impact that the content has on the audience, but also an indicator of the channel's effectiveness. It is the number of views and the complex of reactions ("like", "dislike", "repost", "recommendation") that demonstrate the potential of content and provide opportunities for its monetization. That is, in this case, we are dealing with an effect at the audience level as well as at the author's level.

Discussion

Speaking about the communication model in modern sports discourse, in particular football, one should consider those transformations caused by the transition of a significant part of the content and audience to the digital environment. YouTube has become the platform that has significantly expanded the communication functionality thanks to online services. The cross media and multiplatform nature of media activities, convergence at the level of content production, the transformation of information consumption algorithms caused by the specifics of hypertext, the actualization of the visual component - these and other aspects of the modern media environment have led to changes both in the general journalistic paradigm and in the sports segment.

If earlier the main events, from the world of sports, were covered by media channels (newspapers, magazines, TV and radio programs), today the first news reports appear first in social media, and only then are analyzed by traditional journalistic channels. In addition to the usual competition among the media, there has been added competition with amateur resources, which, in terms of their popularity and influence, not only are not inferior to professional ones, but also often outstrip them. We refer to such amateur resources all non-journalistic media, including the channels of sports clubs, which, although created by journalists, have goals and objectives other than journalistic ones.

Conclusions

Thus, the modern ecosystem of sports journalism (according to Lasswell, the categories "Who?" and "To Whom?") is undergoing significant transformations in terms of content and structure. And the fact that modern digital journalism is already perceived by users as a part of everyday life changes the roles of content creators and those who consume this content. The journalist becomes part of the audience, and the audience begins to play an active role in the news production process.

Changing the traditional genre system, transforming the understanding of the basis of journalistic material, blurring the boundaries of digital journalistic narrative, especially in the social media sector, on the one hand, unites the elements of “Says What?” and “In Which Channel?” (modern content is subordinate to the specifics of the channel), and on the other hand, taking into account cross-media practices removes the meaning of the classical understanding of the category "media channel". The element “With What Effect?” remains relevant and the closest to the classic one, which, due to interactivity and the ability to maximally objectify the effectiveness of content in social media, in modern sports journalism can become the main conceptual factor of digital narrative.