You’ll never watch alone: media and community in the sports bar |
| |
| Authors: | Daniel Buffington |
| |
| Institution: | Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, NC, USA |
| |
| Abstract: | This paper positions itself within the ongoing debate about the impact of media on community generated by Robert Putnam’s research. Accordingly, the increasing availability of sophisticated means of communication has led the progressive substitution of indirect interactions for direct interactions in shared space, thereby eroding an essential basis of community. In contrast, other theoretical perspectives have presented communication technologies as either enhancing community by altering the field of possible social interactions or incapable of replacing direct interactions. This debate is addressed through an ethnography of fans who gathered at a sports bar to watch the World Cup. Observations revealed that while televised broadcasts served as a primary motivation for attendance and a centrepiece of subsequent interactions, patrons did not watch alone; they watched with each other. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
|
|
