BEYOND BOUNDARIES: GLOBALIZATION, SOCCER, AND TRANSLOCAL FANDOM
Open Access
- Author:
- Cooke, Tanner Ryan
- Graduate Program:
- Mass Communications
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 02, 2017
- Committee Members:
- Matthew Paul Mcallister, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Matthew Paul Mcallister, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Charles Elavsky, Committee Member
Marie Hardin, Committee Member
Mark Dyreson, Outside Member - Keywords:
- Globalization
Sport
Media Studies
MediaSport
Ethnography
City
Branding - Abstract:
- This dissertation interrogates the commercial construction and US fan understanding of place in global soccer. I first examine how soccer globalized, moving from a local game developed in post-industrial England to its current status as a global sport. Using Appadurai’s scapes, I examine how soccer incorporates the geographic flow of people, money, media, technology, and ideology to create a globalized cultural form. After building the foundation of a global game, I examine the case of the English Premier League (EPL) to detail the ways in which globalization of soccer has resulted in a commercialized sporting form. After establishing the EPL as a global brand, I examine how the clubs were sold and adapted to the American market, particularly through the process of reverse corporate nationalism. The EPL is sold as something authentically British to appeal to American audiences who engage with the game as a global form. This theme is also evident in a key analytical component of this dissertation: a participant observation of a popular soccer-oriented sports bar in Washington D.C. I examine the ways in which fans engage with the global through their affiliation with global sport as enacted by their fandom and their reflections on it. I particularly highlight how fans are attempting to act and explain their actions in ways that are consistent with preconceived notions of fan authenticity, by enacting practices that then allow them to see themselves as connected to Europe, the UK and even specific cities and neighborhoods in various ways. Here fans are making connections with the global through acts of consumption, but also make meaning through those acts that situate them as cosmopolitans with hybrid identities. The use of soccer to engage with the global is thus a complex and multifaceted process.