プロ野球私設応援団の下位文化研究

Abstract

Mass audiences can now commonly congregate in stadiums due to factors such as advanced transport, increased leisure time, and the growth of the mass media, which has improved spectator sports to create a vibrant and exciting atmosphere produced by the cheering of large numbers of fans who wish to watch players performing. Cheering is a critical component of spectator sports culture. In Japanese professional baseball there are private fan clubs that are central for the generation of cheering within the stadium during the game. The present study focused on the subculture of professional baseball fan clubs that are organized voluntarily by mass sports fans. This paper not only deals with the pattern of action and the value standards peculiar to such fan clubs, but also clarifies the dominant/parent culture that is central to the subculture, and how the subculture is created by adopting the dominant/parent culture through negotiation or conflict between members or groups based on the power resource of the subculture typical to their own. The data were collected through participant observation of private fan clubs of the Hiroshima Carp. It is inferred from descriptions about conflict and power relationships among the members or groups that the social resources are demo-commitment in the stadium and closeness with the baseball team and players, and that “flag-waving” and “leading”, which are the typical forms of cheering behavior in stadiums, serve a ritualistic function of symbolizing the social power of the fan clubs. Furthermore, bureaucracy and yakuza's quasi-family institution are adopted into these distinctive patterns of action and value standards. The former is a dominant culture taken from the mainstream of modern society, and the latter is a parent culture located at a lower level of society. Multiple strata are evident in the subculture of fan clubs. This does not simply mean that the fan clubs have the characteristics of bureaucracy and yakuza's quasi-family institution, but illustrates that the subculture of private fan clubs is created by domesticating bureaucracy and the quasi-family institution to their own values standard and pattern of act about cheering.