The Football World Cup The WritePass Journal

The Football World Cup The Football World Cup .   The introduction of the Internet, ever-increasing wages and transfer fees for players, the Bosman ruling, increased media coverage of games, footballers gaining celebrity status have all changed the game in some way.   Similarly, stars such as David Beckham and Wayne Rooney are known just as much for what they do off the pitch as they are for what they do on it.   Hence, they are also not allowed to be just a working class lad.   They have to be spectacularised as much as the game itself. Spectacularisation therefore is defined by Macionis and Plummer (2007) as a kind of ‘mediated simulacrum’ by which everyone is watching the same event where everything is blown up to Widescreen proportions (Macionis and Plummer: 2008: 84)beyond reality to hyperreality.   The concept of a mediated simulacrum comes from the ideas of the literary critic Jean Baudrillard who maintained that the media image as seen on the television and the Internet is this ‘mediated simulacrum’. Topor (2010), citing Baudrillard, states that: The media itself is therefore responsible for this breakdown of reality since it only provides us with simulated events and communications. As long as there is media, there will exist a simulation and reproduction of signs that constitute reality.   The relation of media to simulation is an investigation into the idea of unknowable reality (Topor: 2002: no page number given). In   terms of blowing up from reality to hyperreality   it could be argued that the propaganda of the Italian government on the run-up to the 1934 World Cup helped maintain public excitement in the upcoming event.   According to Gordon and London (2007), wireless ownership in Italy was low compared to other countries but people often listened to the radio collectively in public places (Tomlinson and Young: 2008: 46). Moreover, they were often listening to sports programmes.   However, according to Gordon and London (2007), citing Ricanatesi:1978): The rapid acceleration of state initiatives in radio, from the early 1930’s, coincided with the build up to the World Cup, and the role of radio in football was immeasurably enhanced following the debut in 1933 of commentator Niccolo Carosio, whose florid, creative and decidedly non-technical broadcasts..Radio sales saw a spurt for the World Cup (Tomlinson and Young: 2007: 46) Even though the audience would not have been the same in terms of size and the technology used would only have been the radio broadcast to a select few who had wirelesses, the effect of making the real into hyper-reality would have been the same. As mentioned above by Whannel (1992), part of the spectacularisation of football has been the removal of the maximum wage as well as an increase in transfer fees paid from one club to another.   In terms of the professionalization of players it is also only part of the story.   Indeed, players now command huge weekly wages and transfer fees which have become increasingly larger over the decades.   To put things in perspective, Nottingham Forest paid out  £1 million for Trevor Francis in 1980 and this was considered to be the most expensive transfer ever.   He became the first ‘million pound player’ in the world.   In 2010, Real Madrid paid out  £100 million pounds for Cristiano Ronaldo.   Both of these transfers are put into perspective when it is considered that all of the 1930 World Cup team had other jobs as well as being international football players (Lisi: 2008: 8). As well as this, players are now members of professional bodies (like the PFA in England or even the FA) and as such they are subject to rules of conduct and behaviour in much the same way as other professions are.   In this way, they are more socially controlled.   According to Macionis and Plummer (2007) professionalization means that: Sports are not just played. Now they have ‘elite groups’-the professional organizations which mark both standards (and boundaries) of skill. Sports are socially controlled and regulated (Macionis and Plummer:   2007:84). Postmodernised sport, as defined by Macionis and Plummer (2008: 84), represents a splintering and increase of the amount of sports played.   It also represents differing groups playing their own versions of a sporting event (‘Gay Olympics’, Paralympics).   However, the part of the definition as put forward by Macionis and Plummer (2008: 84), is the idea that the World Cup is becoming ‘more and more a media event’.   Obviously, this is also connected to all of the other aspects of how the World Cup has changed.   Commercialisation and consumption have made it possible for the World Cup to be more visible to more people by providing the revenue as well as the means to do so.   Globalisation has been made possible by the technology used to beam the events into every country throughout the world.   Spectacularisation has meant that world events like the World Cup are not just covered by the media.   They are heightened from reality to hyper-reality by means of HD televisions and interactivity through the Internet.   In this way, postmodernisation or the process of postmodernism can be explained. Roughly interpreted, postmodernism is not actually easy to define but the clearest definition is: Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific , or objective, efforts   to explain reality.   In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality (www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postm-body.html) So in the case of the ‘postmodernisation’ of football and the World Cup in particular it is the way in which football has been etched onto the public consciousness by repeated images (Electronic, printed and broadcast)that has made the World Cup a postmodernised concept. Conclusion This is obviously as far removed from the World Cup’s early beginnings at it could possibly be.   However, the seeds were already being sown especially in light of the efforts made by the Italian government on the run-up to 1934 to enhance the experience of the Italian public of what was rapidly becoming their national sport. Since that time the World Cup has become an international event which has seen many things happen and has made sure that these events have been broadcast to the viewing public (though in the case of the shooting of the Colombian player in 1994 that was not the case). The goal-that-never-was in the 1966 World Cup final, Pele,   Banks’ save in 1970, The Hand of God incident in 1986, the penalty shootouts in 1990; the list could go on and on.   However, they have all been written into the public consciousness by an ever-increasingly knowing publicity machine which now uses a combination of media coverage and merchandising to get its point across. In turn , the World Cup has come to represent each nation’s feelings and aspirations about itself.   Political events which have remained in the background of events on the field have shown themselves in the way that rivalries have been maintained, victories have been celebrated and defeats have been commiserated.   This fact has been true ever since the first World Cup but has been accentuated by the increase in technology and the amount of distance covered by electronic signals to bring these projected images into the lounges and bars of the worldwide population. Reference List Critcher, C, (1979), ‘Football since the War’ IN: Clarke, C, Critcher, C and Johnson, R (Eds.), ‘Working Class Culture, Hutchinson, London Gordon, R, and London, J (2006), ‘Chapter 3: Italy 1934: Football and Fascism’,IN: Tomlinson A and Young, C (eds.) (2006) ‘National Identity and Global Sports Events: Culture, Politics and Spectacle in the Olympics and the Football World Cup’, State University of New York Press, State University of New York, Albany NY   USA Lisi, CA, (2011), ‘A History of the World Cup 1930-2010’, Scarecrow Press, Maryland, USA Macionis, JJ, and Plummer, K (2007), ‘Sociology: A Global Introduction’, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, England Topor, J (2002), ‘Simulation, simulacrum, definition of’, Available at www.csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/simulationsimulacrum2.htm Whannel, G, (1992), ‘Media Sports Stars: Masculinities and Moralities, Routledge Press, London Dictionary.com, ‘consumption’ Available at www.dictionary.com Definition of postmodernism available at www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postm-body.html, no author given