We Love to Hate Each Other

Football fans are often portrayed as enthusiastic, loyal, critical and sometimes violent. But what is it about football that appeals to them? How do the media – newspaper, radio, TV, blogs and web forums – accommodate the needs of fans, and what connections – if any – is there between the imagined community of football fans and the broader society? These are the questions explored by 20 well-known and merited researchers from 8 countries in this anthology about the mediation of football fandom.

We Love To Hate Each Other should be useful to scholars and students who are engaged in sports journalism and popular culture in both the old and new media.

Content

Acknowledgements

Introduction
Thore Roksvold, Roy Krøvel

What is a Football Fan?
Hans K. Hognestad

Social Media Sport? Journalism, Public Relations and Sport
Raymond Boyle

I. Mediated Fan Culture in Newspapers

An Exemplary Model: The Religious Significance of the Brann 2007 Norwegian Football Championship as Told by the Media
Peter Dahlén

A Hundred Years of Football Reporting in Norwegian Newspapers
Thore Roksvold

Framing the Football Fan as Consumer: A Content Analysis of the Coverage of Supporters in The Star During the 2010 World Cup
Rune Ottosen, Nathalie Hyde-Clarke, Toby Miller

Scottish Football Fans: Hame and Away
Hugh O’Donnell

II. Social Media and Mediated Fan Culture

Battling for Belonging: How Club and Supporter Identities are Created in the Mediation of an Oslo Derby
Harald Hornmoen

The New Media and Hooliganism: Constructing Media Identities
Aage Radmann

“Jaysus! Is Janno a Bird?” A Study of Femininity and Football Fans in Online Forums
Deirdre Hynes

Conversing the Fans: “Coveritlive” and the Social Function of Journalism
Steen Steensen

Football Nationalism in the Blogosphere: Carew, Riise and the Frames of Common Sense
Andreas Ytterstad

Communicating in Search of Understanding: A Case Study of Fans, Supporters and Islam
Roy Krøvel

III. Documentary Film and Television

Documenting the Narrative of Arab Identity in a Jewish State Through Football: Between National ‘Multi-Existence’ and its Impossibility
Alina Bernstein, Lea Mandelzis, Inbar Shenhar

Learning to Become a Football Star: Representations of Football Fan Culture in Swedish Public Service Television for Youth
Britt-Marie Ringfjord

“Truly a Fan Experience”? The Cultural Politics of the Live Site
David Rowe, Stephanie Alice Baker

The Authors