Digital Football Cultures

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.

Stefan Lawrence is Senior Lecturer in Socio-cultural Aspects of Sport and Leisure at Newman University, UK. His primary research interests include "race", racialization(s) and racism(s) in sport and leisure, sport for peace and social justice, and sport and digital cultures. He is especially interested in exploring football as a cultural phenomenon. Stefan is Founder of the Digital Football Network (@digiFootballnet), which was created to promote a critical approach to the study of digital football cultures. Stefan tweets from @StefanoLawrence. Garry Crawford is Professor of Sociology at the University of Salford, UK. His research and teaching focuses primarily on audiences, media and consumer patterns, digital media and new technologies, and most specifically, sport fans and video gamers. Garry is Director of the University of Salford Digital Cluster and Reviews Editor for Cultural Sociology.

1. The Hyperdigitalization of Football Cultures,  2. 'Feel It Closing In': Digital Football Cultures in a Claustropolitan Age,  3. Transnational Digital Fandom: Club Media, Place and (Networked) Space,  4. Between Old and New Traditions: Transnational Solidarities and the Love for Liverpool FC,  5. From Backstage to Frontstage: Exploring Football and the Growing Problem of Online Abuse,  6. Gender Trouble in Digital Football Fandom: A Swedish Perspective,  7. Shifting Patterns of Football Fandom and Digital Media Cultures: YouTube, Fifa Videogames, and AFC Wimbledon,  8. Exploring the Digitalization of Football Violence: Ultras, Disembodiment and the Internet,  9. Football Videogames: Re-shaping Football and Re-defining Fandom in a Postmodern Era,  10. Restoring 'The Football Kingdom of the Far East': The Limited Potential of  Videogames for the Development and Promotion of Hong Kong Football,  11. "Good Morning Beautiful People ... I Love You but I'll Beat Your Arse in Fifa17": The Negotiation of Social Capital and FIFA17 Match-making of Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson Twitter,  12. Football 2.0? The (Un)Changing Nature of Football and its Possible Futures