MEP315 SPORT, MEDIA AND CELEBRITY

1. MEP315 SPORT, MEDIA AND CELEBRITY 4. The Media, Fandom and Football Hooliganism

2. Sport / Fandom: peculiar features • Often linked to local / regional / national identity rather than ‘the sport per se’ • Subject to seasonal variations in activity • Combines both co-present and mediated experiences to varying degrees • The end-products (texts) are mostly disposable and rarely memorable

3. Fan Cultural Resistance • Football Supporters Association (FSA) set up in 1985 and courts considerable media attention (R. Taylor 1992) • FSA helps to defeat ID cards scheme, led Kick Racism Out of Football Campaign (Brown 1998) • FSA expresses concern over funding of all-seater stadia, organises ticketing petitions to FA • Independent Supporters Associations (ISAs) at club level have grown in power as the nationwide FSA and NFFSC weaken (e.g. help to improve facilities for disabled fans)

4. The press and hooliganism (Murphy et al. 1990) • “..newspaper practice before WW1 involved neither the excessive over – nor under – reporting of football violence on or off the field” (p.109) • Late 1960s – “..media coverage of football was contributing directly to its escalation” (p.121) • Present-day tabloid press coverage leads to “intensification of the status competition between rival hooligan groups” (p.124)

5. Moral panic and disorder (Muncie 2004: 121) Identification of a subversive minority Simplification of the cause Stigmatisation of those involved Stirring of public indignation Stamping down hard

6. Crowd disorder at spectator sports • Almost entirely associated with football (rarely rugby, occasionally cricket) • Closely related to but not always caused by extremist right-wing racist groups • Sometimes organised, usually disorganised • Often treated as symptomatic of wider masculine subculture of violence

7. Press coverage of hooliganism (Hall, in Ingham et al. 1978) • Emotive ‘language of violence’, particularly acute in tabloid headlines (SAVAGES! ANIMALS!) • ‘Dismissive labelling’ panders to existing stereotypes (e.g. ‘fierce bulldogs’ refers to patriotic English fans) • Simplification and distortion of complex social problem (i.e. alienated young men)

8. Press coverage of Euro’96 and France’98 (Garland and Rowe 2001) MAIN THEMES OF CONTENT ANALYSIS: • Xenophobia (e.g. ‘lucky Crouts’ when referring to the German football team) • Military metaphors (e.g. Let’s ‘Blitz’ the French; ‘canon ball’ free-kick) • Nostalgia for 1966 (stereotypical ‘golden age’ of English football/ fans) • Sensationalist reporting of hooligan ‘threat’ (e.g. ‘thousands of fans lined the streets’ when only a handful were visible on TV reports)

9. Recent ideas about sports fandom • Fans as neo-tribes (Maffesoli 1996) - ‘emotional communities’ with a sense of neighbourhood where ‘differences’ are embraced within a process of de-individualisation • Sport fans follow a ‘career’ from becoming a fan to learning the codes of conduct to becoming an enthusiast – to then possibly pursuing activities professionally (Crawford 2004) • Recent technologies enable (global) fan networks • Consumer / fan power seems limited in relation to larger economic interests (e.g. Man United takeover, shareliverpoolfc.co.uk versus owners)