Most newsworthy events fall into two general catagories; News and Media Events. News events are those events which can be represented as a set of information (the score was 5 to 4 in the Soccer game last night). These events can be represented as points in time. A media event is the coverage and narrative surrounding an occasion.
A Media event has particular identifiers as listed above. Events tend to fit in a 5 categories; Occasion of State, Contest, Heroic Mission, High Holiday, and the “occasion”. Of particular interest to the area of sports journalism is Contest and Heroic Mission.
With the growing ability for event coverage to effect the event itself, a third category should be introduced the, “Paradigmatic Media Event”. This category looks to the way that the viewer sees themsleves in relation to the media event as well as the the way that the reporter or journalist intereacts with the event. In particular, the way in which a particular media event is approached can be categorized as “High Ritual” or “High Drama”. The journalist can choose to look at a particular event with reverence and respect or investigate with reproach and scepticism. With this in mind, the effect that the ritualized or dramatized coverage has on a viewer can be emotional, symbolic or both. This also effects the way in which the journalists and producers choose to report an event.