ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at gaps in the recent international development of theory through work on digital leisure cultures, especially since the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, the effects of which still permeate our fractured globe. The developments are largely in the field of digital leisure studies, but also in deviant leisure as part of ultra-realist criminology. The aim is to produce better theorizing of the so-called “digital turn” in theory and the new politics of theory (Redhead, 2017a). The specificities of digital football cultures is the terrain of this present book. So it looks like we are on the brink of a new digital leisure studies looking at areas like digital football cultures? On the brink of digital theory and theory digital, what theoretical resources can we turn to for the future? This chapter looks at theory and theorists in order to illuminate the recent development of digital football cultures. This chapter focuses on how in an age of the “return of the dialectic” digitized theory, or theory digital, has now become widely available to the world in the era of what I call “theoretical times” (Redhead, 2017a, 2017b). Digital theory is here to stay, and all disciplines are affected.
