Essays --

In my thesis, I would like to analyse the representation of football stars in two iconic British magazines. My aim is to show how two distinct magazines contribute to the ongoing narratives of football players and managers. The first is one of the most famous football magazines around the globe, the authoritative FFT and the second is the original lad’s magazine, Loaded. Naturally, the proper investigation of this complex topic requires knowledge from various fields of cultural studies. In the following, I will introduce the theories and ideas related to my study. First of all, the term ‘football star’ should be examined closely. Although stars permeate the media, the meaning of sport star is not necessarily self-evident. Everyone has a rough idea about stars and stardom, but as I concentrate strictly on football stars in my study, a precise definition cannot be omitted. The main reason for this is that sport news is not only about sport stars but also players and managers who are not part of the star system. Smart states that the foundation of becoming a sport star is a unique sporting moment which shows the player’s exceptional talent. In order to keep this status, the player has to demonstrate his special skills repeatedly under pressure, against opponents in a highly competitive field (Smart 2005, 156). In addition, he has to grab the audience’s attention through media coverage and promotion. Cultural intermediaries and the audience together elevate the player to the star level. When this happens, exceptional qualities and original characteristics are being attached to the player’s name (Smart 2005, 156-157). Smart points out that appearance strongly increases media attention. He supports this point by claiming that David Be... ...hat Europe is a collection of individual nations. Even when discussing teams and fans of other nations, national reference points are frequently used. Pan-European identity almost exclusively appears in conjunction with references to the nation. Typically, Europe is only imagined as ‘self’ when it is dominated by English culture and fits into the framework of the English nation, otherwise it is considered to be ‘other’. The author concludes that the nation is essential to the sports media industries, as football basically relies on the idea of national ‘us’ and ‘them’. Moreover, the concept of nation is at the centre of fan cultures and popular culture surrounding football. In football culture, national stereotypes are a key source of humour. While all Europeans seem to celebrate football similarly, they are divided into national collectives (Inthorn 2010, 791-798).