Football Re(me)mediation: i meme e l’estetizzazione dell'emozione calcistica nelle community social = Football Re(me)mediation: Memes and The Aestheticization of Football Emotions in Social Newtorks Communities

Abstract

The relationship between sport, emotions and media is immediate. Football has a strong ability to emotionally involve huge masses of fans, thanks to the dramaturgical and ritualistic qualities of each match and thanks to the collective identification in footballer-heroes (Bifulco e Tirino, 2018). These qualities are further reinvigorated by media stories, which transform fans into media users (Gau, James e Kim, 2009). Due to the emergence of the SMS triangle (Sport, Media, Sponsor) (Martelli 2011, 2014) the figure of the fan is increasingly indistinguishable from the figures of the user and the consumer. However, football fans increasingly have the opportunity to participate in contemporary cultural production, for example by generating UGC to be disseminated in media environments such as social networks. Through the concept of “radical mediation”, Grusin argues that the media are configured as emotional environments. On the other hand, social networks constitute a privileged territory of exteriorization of one’s emotional commitment (Boccia Artieri et al. 2017). Starting from these sociological and mediological perspectives, the aim of our paper is to investigate media modalities and processes by which football fans’ emotions are remediated, on social networks, through the production and dissemination of meme. Meme are relevant examples of user-generated content (Boccia Artieri, 2012, Jenkins, Ford e Green, 2013), and also are central media objects to understand the participatory cultures of web 2.0 and the typical logic of remix cultures. Our paper will try to highlight how these grassroots practices, within a new participatory aesthetic, elaborate the connection between mediation and affection (Grusin 2017), (social) media and emotions, football communication (mainstream and bottom-top) and fans.