3pm Journal of Digital research & publishing - artichoke web design

3pm Journal of Digital research & publishing
keeping with its corporate position at the head of the rugby community hierarchy; both
locally, regionally and globally (refer below).
The ARU maintains its authority online in the way that it convenes group discussions
online, 26 ‘pushing’ crafted corporate messages into its newsfeeds and falling short of a
dialogic (two-way) interaction with its fan community. Dialogic interaction 27 appears
reserved for communication between ARU representatives and the mainstream corporate
media entities of print, broadcast and online (traditional media partners) as well as a
handful of selected bloggers and online ‘mashups’ 28 such as: www.theroar.com.au 29 .
The former chief rugby union writer (print journalist) for the Murdoch-owned The
Australian and Daily Telegraph daily mastheads, Peter Jenkins, heads the media
department at Rugby HQ (as the ARU brands itself). Which begs the question: in an
age of convergence is this coincidence or corporate design? And while it may explain the
lack of sophistication (lack of technacy 30 even) of the ARU’s online communications, it is
possible the ARU strategies are purpose built around vested commercial interests rather
than a shared interest in the actual game of rugby itself. These commercial interests are
themselves the product of rugby as distributed media entertainment.
To its credit, however, the ARU has embraced although by now means comprehensively
26 Shirky (2010)
27 Pavlik, John (2008)
28 Burrows (2007) defines a ‘mash-up’ as “a new hybrid of web-based applications that
mixes different services from disparate – even competing – websites.”
29 Founded and run by the sons of long-serving Fairfax rugby journalist, Spiro Zavos.
30 Refer to Margaret Simons (2007) and Bruns & Jacobs (2007) for a discussion of the
professional media capabilities and the requirements for new media journalism one of which
is digital technancy.
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