New screen action and its memories : the “live” performance of mediated sport fandom

The experience of watching sport on television is changing with the proliferation of screens, the diversification of screen-based content, and the extension of interactive screen-facilitated communication. In recent decades, sport broadcast television viewing opportunities shifted from a primary reliance on a single “box in the corner” in the domestic living room environment to the availability of a multiplicity of television sets in different household spaces. Later, as television screen size increased, picture quality improved, and public viewing sites multiplied, new interactive screen-based devices emerged that have enabled audiences simultaneously to watch sport in many different spaces and to communicate about the experience to distant others. This “live” performance of mediated sport spectatorship parallels in some respects “live” mediated athletic performance, involving sharing the now and the making of digital memory.