Current developments in media sport, and the politics of local identities: A ‘postmodern’ debate?

Abstract

Norbert Elias notes that the complex development of the history of a sport leads, over time, to a 'specific stage of tension-equilibrium' which he calls the 'mature stage', albeit that he sees it as provisional. After this, though the form may falsely appear finalized, the whole structure of its further development changes. Though Elias has in mind the manner in which individual sports have developed, his observations may be applied more widely and radically to the 'mediatization' of sport. The notion of 'mediatization', conceiving as it does of a powerful change in the way that our culture is produced in the media age, bears upon sport in a very obvious manner, since it proposes that more and more of our cultural life is centred around our consumption of the mass media. A major new phase of the development of many sports, arguably of sport generally, was inaugurated with the television age, and now sport culture and media culture are for many sports fans, and media consumers, closely related. As will be seen below, the transformative power upon sport and mass media alike, especially television, of their economic relationship, has been enormous. But the notion of 'mediatization' suggests that sport, as a form of culture, will not merely interact with media culture but increasingly figure as one of its aspects.