Online Football Fandom in Brazil (2013 OII SDP presentation) - Ana Vimieiro

online football fandom in brazil:
pleasure and politics on the Twitterland
Ana Vimieiro
Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia
@carolvimieiro | anavimieiro.com

Who am I?
 2nd year PhD candidate
 Background: Media and Communication/Journalism (MSc and
BA)
 Strong background in methodology (digital methods and
frame analysis)
 5 years of experience as a journalist back in Brazil (including
1 year producing a sports TV show)
 Huge football fan my whole life
OII SDP 2013 | Online football fandom in Brazil: pleasure and politics on the Twitterland | Ana Vimieiro (@carolvimieiro)

Research problem
 Twitter and other social media platforms have been largely
used for sport-related commentary and interactions
 Online activities of sport fans have not received substantial
attention in the social science and humanities fields up to
date (Gibbons & Dixon, 2010)
 The implications of the Internet and new technologies for
pop culture fandom have been much more explored
(Jenkins, 2006; 2007; Earl &Kimport, 2009)

Source: https://twitter.com/RobHarris/status/351491525710073856/photo/1

Pleasure/Politics
“Even when fan-produced content and comments are critical in nature, there is
rarely a fundamental challenge to those who possess overwhelming symbolic
power in defining and anchoring the reality of elite sport—sports organizing
bodies, leagues, clubs, media companies, and sponsors (cf. Couldry 2003, 2006).
Such gestures of fan defiance struggle to mobilize transformative forces in
sport, even if this were the intention of ‘dissidents’.Indeed, discussion by
fans often concentrates on how officials and executives should improve their
performance to achieve greater success for their team on the field, better
financial returns off it, and more appealing action for those watching (Scibilia&
Hutchins 2012; Wilson, W. 2007)”.
(Rowe & Hutchins, 2012, p. 103)
identity - participatory practices - formal politics

Theoretical framework
Sport fandom Pop culture fandom
Resistance (ideology, power) Participation/convergence (more
symbiotic)
Sociology and psychology Media and cultural studies
Overvaluation of the “authentic”
supporter (who attends matches in
person) / concentration on the
exceptional (hooligans)
Everyday life is the focus
Offline and online are two separate
worlds
No such divisions (implications of the
emergence of the Internet for fandom
practices)
Consumer and fan are two distinct
entities
Fan/consumer are two intricate sides of
the “prosumer”
Schimmel, Harrington, &Bielby, 2007; Earl &Kimport, 2009; Crawford, 2003, 2004; Pearson, 2010;
Jenkins, 2006, 2007.

My problem right now
 It's not that simple just take the theoretical framework
from pop culture fandom studies and my problems are
solved!
 Sport fans very often use an anti-media discourse (they think
commodification and globalisation are killing their objects of
affection)
 They also adopt a very oppositional approach when it comes to
sporting governing bodies
 Sport fandom develops in different ways than pop culture fandom
(loyalty; one club your whole life; generation to generation; and so
on)

One way to find some answers
 Better understand the differences between sport economy
and other creative economies
 More centralized? (Too much economic power in very few hands?)
 Too afraid to be more transparent and adapt to a changing media
ecology? (Their business model has been very profitable)
 Are sport fans more loyal? Don’t they have a sort of guarantee that
they will sell their products even if they don’t answer their
“clients”?
 Is a market with less competition?
 Even the level of piracy is lower because of the centrality of
simultaneity for sport consumption (Hutchins & Rowe, 2012)

My cases
 Three distinct cases, all from Brazil
 #ForaRicardoTeixeira (successful campaign organised by fans)
 Clubs’ communities
 Conversations around the 2014 World Cup
 Why Twitter?
 Central position when it comes to digital sport fandom in the Brazilian
context (key-users, journalists, interest-based)

Methodology
 Using yourTwapperkeeper (data collection), CAT (coding), R (data
mining) etc.
 Mixed-methods approach
 Digital methods – dynamics, networks and content (hashtags)
 Qualitative content analysis (top tweets, key-events, frame analysis)

1) #ForaRicardoTeixeira
 President of CBF for 23 years
 Involved in many corruption cases (Contraband Flight, 1994; Nike and the Probing
Commissions in the Congress, 2001; ISL case, 2011)
 Very close to Globo, the largest media company in Brazil
 Launched on the 21st of July 2011 (lasted for 8 months)
 “I couldn’t give a shit” about the corruption allegations (Pinheiro, 2011)
 Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr accounts; website and a blog; online
petition (Avaaz)
 887,885 post views in the first 10 days (Facebook)
 First “twitterstorm”: 50,839 tweets ("#ForaRicardoTeixeira," 2011)
300,000 tweets were posted (15,000)
Marcello Casal JR/ABr

Bruns (2011) – scripts:metrify.awk, urlextract.awk, urlresolve.awk, urltruncate.awk

Gamson& Modigliani (1989) – Framing matrix; Matthes&Kohring (2008); Vimieiro & Maia (2011) – Indirect frame
analysis.

Vimieiro, A. (forthcoming). Fan activism on Twitter: online sport communities and the campaign
#ForaRicardoTeixeira. Ciberlegenda.

2) Clubs’ communities
 12 largest clubs
 Collecting data during the 2013 Brazilian Football Championship
(Brasileirão) – longitudinal approach
 Collecting from keywords: clubs’ names and nicknames
(afterwards, a filter has to be used)
 Everyday engagement: football fans talk about their clubs in a daily
basis (in contrast with the national team, for instance)

Wiki created by fans
with the whole history
of the club
Website where many
fans publish
videos, photos, short
stories, anecdotes, chr
onicles, biographical
stories etc.

Alternative radio
produced by fans (they
make live commentaries
in all matches)
Alternative club’s
coverage (podcasts)

3) 2014 FIFA World Cup / National team
 Longitudinal approach
 Data collection: 2012-2014
 Many controversies during this period: World Cup Law, reopening of
stadiums, Confederations Cup…
 Distinct frames depending on the situation: performance
(players/team), sport economy (costs/FIFA), socioeconomic
(costs/Brazilian government)
 Paradox of the Confederations Cup:
 Massive protests (costs and FIFA’s policies)
 Records of attendance and TV audience!

Findings, next steps and troubles
 Politics/pleasure
 They move across distinct roles (fan/consumer/citizen)
 BUT they also struggle to politicise some discussions when they feel it
is going to threaten their passion
 SNA and qualitative analysis (2nd and 3rd cases)
 How much data I’ve got! (5 million tweets and counting)
 Feeling I’ll need to do interviews…

Online Football Fandom in Brazil (2013 OII SDP presentation) - Ana Vimieiro

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