273 International Journal of Sport Communication, 2008, 1, 273-285 © 2008 Human Kinetics, Inc. The (Re)Shaping of the Israeli Sport Media: The Case of Talk-Back Yair Galily Zinman College, Wingate Institute, Israel From its explosive development in the last decade of the 20th century, the World Wide Web has become an ideal medium for dedicated sports fanatics and a useful resource for casual fans, as well. Its accessibility, interactivity, speed, and multi- media content have triggered a fundamental change in the delivery of mediated sports, a change for which no one can yet predict the outcome (Real, 2006). This commentary sheds light on a process in which the talk-back mechanism, which enables readers to comment on Web-published articles, is (re)shaping the sport realm in Israeli media. The study on which this commentary is based involved the comparative analysis of over 3,000 talk-backs from the sports sections of 3 daily Web news sites (Ynet, nrg, and Walla!). The argument is made that talk- backs serve not only as an extension of the journalistic sphere but also as a new source of information and debate. Keywords: sport section, Internet, fans, journalism Providing a platform for Internet users to express their opinions is not a new phenomenon; its origins date back to the news groups of the early days of the Web. The classic news groups were based on their own protocol (NNTP) and dedicated application, which over the years became an integral part of the e-mail program. Although these news groups initially focused on academic issues, they also established an opening for free expression with so-called alt (for alternative) groups. In the mid-1990s, when the browser became the most common way of conducting online tasks, the news groups lost their luster. The desire of Internet companies to attract subscribers led them to develop communities based on their sites. In this new method, discussion groups became an integral part of the site and a source of attraction for its services. The most salient example from that period is the Internet site RagingBull.com, which began as a forum for discussing stocks and eventually turned into a proper financial site (Hadar, 2001; Ilan, 2001). The soaring popularity of the new forums also underscored one very substan- tial limitation—they forced users to limit their commentary to a specific area on the site and to a limited group of users who were members of the same forum. This shortcoming did not escape the attention of Internet entrepreneurs, and in The author is with Zinman College, the Wingate Institute, Israel 42902. SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY