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Abstract
Sport and the media have long served as arenas for the development of national identity, both of which are examined in this study of the newspaper coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. This article reports on the findings of a content analysis of newspaper coverage of the FIFA World Cup; the newspaper data collected included all major daily Australian newspapers. Following an in-depth analysis, five themes emerged: patriotism; dealing with loss; celebrity; national identity; and ethnicity. This paper examines the related themes of dealing with loss and national identity. Analysis revealed that during the pre-event phase, a clearly articulated national identity was constructed through the media; this was then used as a reference point for subsequent media coverage following Australia’s loss to Germany, a significant turning point for the Australian team. The aim of this article is to investigate the role played by the mass media in the representation, production and construction of Australian national identity within the context of sporting loss in an international competition. Media representation of Australian sporting nationalism is used as a lens through which to examine how elements of Australian national identity were represented, reproduced and reinforced by the media following the Australian soccer team’s poor performance.
Notes
1. Danforth, ‘Narrating the Nation’.
2. Ibid.
3. Hage, ‘Multiculturalism and White Paranoia’.
4. Stratton, Race Daze.
5. DIMIA, People of Australia.
6. Batourney and Goldlust, Unravelling Identity.
7. Soccer is the most popular football code with persons born in a country other than the main English speaking countries (ABS, 2009); each wave of migration results in the increasing popularity of soccer.
8. Hughson, ‘Football, Folk Dancing and Fascism’.
9. Hibbins, ‘The Cambridge Connection’.
10. Hallinan and Judd, ‘Duelling Paradigms’.
11. Hibbins, ‘The Cambridge Connection’.
12. Hibbins, ‘The Cambridge Connection’; Blainey, A Game of Our Own.
13. Hibbins, ‘The Cambridge Connection’.
14. An annual competition between Australia and Ireland uses slightly modified rules.
15. Horton, ‘Rugby Union Football’.
16. Horton, ‘Dominant Ideologies’.
17. Murray, ‘From Suburban Football’.
18. Horton, ‘Rugby Union Football’.
19. Ibid.
20. Horton, ‘Tumultuous Text’.
21. Skinner, Zakus, and Edwards, ‘Coming in From the Margins’.
22. Hughson, ‘Football, Folk Dancing and Fascism’.
23. Anderson, Imagined Communities.
24. Hallinan, Hughson, and Burke, ‘Supporting the “World Game”’.
25. Skinner, Zakus, and Edwards ‘Coming in From the Margins’.
26. Hughson, ‘Football, Folk Dancing and Fascism’.
27. Hallinan, Hughson, and Burke, ‘Supporting the “World Game”’, 285.
28. Ibid.
29. Wenner, MediaSport.
30. Denham and Desormeaux, ‘Headlining the Head-Butt’.
31. Boyle and Haynes, ‘The Grand Old Game’.
32. Geertz, ‘Deep Play’.
33. Anderson, Imagined Communities.
34. Bairner, ‘Sport and the Nation’; Giullianotti, Football: A Sociology; Whannel, Culture, Politics and Sport.
35. Giullianotti, Football: A Sociology.
36. Bale, ‘Sport and National Identity’.
37. Magdalinski, ‘The Reinvention of Australia’.
38. Ibid.
39. Cho, ‘Unfolding Sporting Nationalism’; Hogan, ‘Staging the Nation’; Levermore, ‘Sport’s Role’.
40. Crabbe, ‘The Public Gets’.
41. Rowe, McKay, and Miller, ‘Come Together’.
42. Billings and Tambosi, ‘Portraying the United States’.
43. Bairner and Shirlow, ‘Territory, Politics and Soccer’.
44. Crolley, Hand, and Jeutter, ‘Playing the Identity Card’.
45. Vincent et al., ‘England Expects’.
46. Andrews and Jackson, Sport Stars; Bairner. ‘Sport and the Nation’; MacClancy, Sport, Identity and Ethnicity; Maguire, Global Sport: Identities, Societies, Civilizations; Wenner, MediaSport; Whannel, Culture, Politics and Sport.
47. Alabarces, Tomlinson, and Young, ‘Argentina versus England’; Crolley, Hand, and Jeutter, ‘Playing the Identity Card’.
48. Boyle and Haynes, ‘The Grand Old Game’.
49. Butterworth, ‘Do You Believe’.
50. McKay and Roderick, ‘Lay Down Sally’.
51. Rowe and Gilmour, ‘Getting a ticket’.
52. Hallinan and Hughson, ‘The beautiful’; Hay, ‘Our Wicked Foreign Game’; Skinner, Zakus, and Edwards, ‘Coming in From the Margins’.
53. Maguire, Global Sport: Identities, Societies, Civilizations.
54. Boyle and Haynes, ‘The Grand Old Game’.
55. Cottle, ‘The Production of News’.
56. Australian Press Council, ‘The State of the News’.
57. Denham, ‘Global and Local’.
58. Corbin and Strauss, Basics of Qualitative Research.
59. Denzin and Lincoln, The Sage Handbook.
60. Herald Sun, 15 May, Sport, 68.
61. Sydney Morning Herald, 25 May, News, 1.
62. The Advertiser, 10 June, 4.
63. Daily Telegraph, 25 May, Sport, 70–71.
64. Sunday Mail [South Australia], 20 June, News, 5.
65. Courier-Mail, 9 June, 39.
66. Courier Mail, 4 June, Sport, 118.
67. Courier Mail, 8 June, 67.
68. The term ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) dates back to 1915 when Australian and New Zealand troops were gathered prior to the battle at Gallipoli. Although it is indicative of the history of the close relationship between the two colonial countries, Due (2008) argues that the idea of the ANZAC has been appropriated in Australia and the ANZACs are seen as embodying values and traits that are distinctly Australian.
69. Tranter and Donoghue, ‘Colonial and Post-colonial’.
70. Milner, ‘Kenny: The Evolution’.
71. Tranter and Donoghue, ‘Colonial and Post-colonial’.
72. Haltof, ‘In Quest of Self-identity’; Tranter and Donoghue, ‘Colonial and Post-colonial’.
73. Tranter and Donoghue, ‘Colonial and Post-colonial’.
74. The Age, 24 May, News, 14.
75. Daily Telegraph, 25 May, Sport, 71.
76. Daily Telegraph, 17 June, Sport, 84.
77. Daily Telegraph, 17 June, Sport, 84–85.
78. Sunday Telegraph, 20 June, World Cup, 54.
79. Sunday Telegraph, 13 June, Sport, 51.
80. West Australian, 12 July, Sport, 58.
81. Herald Sun, 21 June, 88.
82. Sunday Age, 6 June, Sport, 3.
83. The Age, 21 May, Sport, 5.
84. Daily Telegraph, 15 June, World Cup, 70.
85. Herald Sun, 17 June, World Cup, 102.
86. The Age, 26 May, Sport, 4.
87. The Age, 19 June, Sport, 12.
88. Tranter and Donoghue, ‘Ned Kelly’.
89. Sun-Herald, 13 June, 11.
90. Sydney Morning Herald, 5 July, Sport, 31.
91. The Australian, 6 July, Sport, 40.
92. Tranter and Donoghue, ‘Colonial and Post-colonial’.
93. Daily Telegraph, 26 June, Sport, 151.
94. Herald Sun, 1 July, Opinion, 30.
95. Ibid.
96. Herald Sun, 21 June, News, 5.
97. West Australian, 3 July, Agenda, 36.
98. Courier Mail, 14 July, 81.
99. West Australian, 26 June, Agenda, 44.
100. The Advertiser, 8 June, Sport, 91.
101. The Age, 7 June, Sport, p. 11.
102. Whannel. Culture, Politics and Sport.
103. Tranter and Donoghue, ‘Colonial and Post-colonial’.
104. Phillips, ‘Sport, War and Gender’.
105. McKay and Roderick, ‘Lay Down Sally’; Mewett, Fragments of a Composite’.
106. Hibbins, ‘The Cambridge Connection’.
107. Horton, ‘Dominant Ideologies’; Horton, ‘Rugby Union Football’.
108. Booth, ‘Sports Policy’.
109. Sack and Suster, ‘Soccer and Croatian Nationalism’.