Mediated Patriot Games

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between national identity and media sport, focusing specifically on the construction and representations of national identities in the television coverage of the (men’s) 1996 European Football Championships (Euro ’96). While Anderson’s and Hobsbawm’s respective concepts of ‘imagined communities’ and ‘invented traditions’ are useful in this regard, the process-sociological perspective is also particularly helpful. National habitus codes, embodied feelings and the practical consciousness of the individuals who comprise a nation have been shown to play a powerful role in the foundation of cultural relations, identity politics and the construction and representation of national identities. The results of this textual analysis of Euro ’96 television coverage — supported by insights into the production codes that helped to construct the texts — suggest that it served to reinforce the stronger emotive I/we identification of the English with their own nation, rather than with the we-image of being also Europeans. The findings suggest that dominant I/we national identities are arguably strengthened in international sporting tournaments like Euro ’96, which can be seen as mediated patriot games where nation is pitted against nation, with matches framed as contests between ‘us’ and ‘them’.