Being a Football Kid. Football as a Mediatised Play Practice

Abstract

There has always been a close connection between football, fan cultures and media. In contemporary media culture, this connection has expanded to a wide range of media — digital, in particular — and to a wider range of users, children included. Through their networked media practices, children form and perform their identities, related to specific communities of practice or fan cultures as social practices of interpretive reproduction (Reckwitz, 2002; Frykman and Gilje, 2003; Corsaro, 2005). Media form the basis of our interactions, and mediatisation must be seen as a prerequisite for children’s play today (Hepp, 2012; Hjarvard, 2013). Children’s fan cultures cover a wide range of topics; yet football is a field with specific explanatory power due to its structural and cultural specificities.