Abstract
The website MyFootballClub offers a novel experience for football fans. Through the design and operation of a website, it attempts to reinvigorate fan participation in a heavily mediated, multibillion-dollar global industry. Charging a membership fee of ÂÃ"šÃ‚£35 (€47), MFC purchased a controlling stake in a non-league English football club, with power over management decisions handed to online members. Attracting more than 30,000 members from over 70 nations, this exercise in online ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“football democracyââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ is significant for more than its novelty value and the spawning of similar exercises in other countries. MFC offers an important case study in which ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“media spaceââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ is privileged above all others, claiming to resurrect football-based organic community bonds that were supposedly disrupted by media, but doing so within media. MFC demonstrates how media sport synthesizes apparent contradictions, so that members can recreate football-as-folk-culture fantasies through the processes of mediation and commodification that are otherwise blamed for killing ââ"šÂ¬Ã‹Å“the peopleââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s gameââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | European Journal of Cultural Studies |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |
Keywords
- Ebbsfleet United
- MyFootballClub
- networked media sport
- online social networks
- soccer teams
- sports supporters