ABSTRACT

As the digital revolution continues apace, emergent technologies and means of communication present new challenges and opportunities for the football industry. This is the first book to bring together key contemporary debates at the intersection of football studies, leisure studies, and digital cultural studies.

It presents cutting edge theoretical and empirical work based around four key themes: theorizing digital football cultures; digital football fandom; football and social media; and football (sub)cybercultures. Covering topics such as transnational digital fandom, online abuse, and gender, Digital Football Cultures argues that we are witnessing the hyperdigitalization of the world’s most popular sport.

This book is a valuable resource for students and researchers working in leisure studies, sports studies, football studies, and critical media studies, as well as geography, anthropology, criminology, and sociology. It is also fascinating reading for anybody working in sport, media, and culture.

part I|49 pages

Theorizing digital football cultures and fandom

chapter 2|11 pages

“Feel it closing in”

Digital football cultures in a claustropolitan age

chapter 3|17 pages

Transnational digital fandom

Club media, place, and (networked) space

chapter 4|19 pages

Between old and new traditions

Transnational solidarities and the love for Liverpool FC

part II|55 pages

Football and social media

chapter 5|17 pages

From backstage to frontstage

Exploring football and the growing problem of online abuse

chapter 6|18 pages

Gender trouble in digital football fandom

A Swedish perspective

chapter 7|18 pages

Shifting patterns of football fandom and digital media cultures

YouTube, Fifa videogames, and AFC Wimbledon

part III|82 pages

Football (sub)cybercultures

chapter 8|14 pages

Exploring the digitalization of football violence

Ultras, disembodiment, and the Internet

chapter 9|15 pages

Football videogames

Re-shaping football and re-defining fandom in a postmodern era

chapter 10|16 pages

Restoring “the Football Kingdom of the Far East”

The limited potential of videogames for the development and promotion of Hong Kong football

chapter 11|16 pages

“Good morning beautiful people … I love you but I’ll beat your arse in Fifa 17”

The negotiation of social capital and Fifa 17 match-making of Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson Twitter

chapter 12|19 pages

Football 2.0?

The (un)changing nature of football and its possible futures