Coordinators: Francisco Pinheiro and Carlos Nolasco

Along the lines of Issue 8 of Mediapolis, dedicated to sport, this edition is open to novel studies on football and its interaction with the media, journalism and communication. As a social phenomenon and scientific object of study, football is still hostage to epistemological preconceptions and suffers from a certain degree of academic isolation particularly when viewed from the perspective of social sciences and humanities.

We believe that to dedicate a Mediapolis edition to the relationship between football, the media and communication is in itself a bold step, especially in the Portuguese academic context, which comes across as a paradox: while football is one of the most representative phenomena of popular culture, the academic focus thereon is nevertheless diminished. The same holds for Portuguese journalism, in which sports journalism (often sidelined) plays a hegemonic role. The presentation of this theme in 2021-2022 was also justified due to the commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the Portuguese National Football team (male) and the 100th anniversary (1922-2022) of the football competitions organised by the Portuguese Football Federation, which inevitably impacts (football) on the history of the media, journalism and communication in Portugal.

On one hand, from a scientific point of view our academy still draws on the Anglo-Saxon studies on sport in general, and football in particular, crystallized in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, accustomed to associate sport with concepts of order, discipline and alienation of the masses. In this sense, sport would be epistemologically categorised in the field of leisure time, regarded as a marginal theme and removed from the “important” issues that rule international dynamics and Portuguese contemporaneity. On the other hand, in the field of the media, journalism and communication, the football phenomenon has grown exponentially throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, although we continue to see sport as a minor issue in informative terms when compared with those subjects considered as socially more relevant, such as politics or the economy, for example. The extensive and record-breaking audiences worldwide created by football – and the massification (popular and by the media) associated thereto – pushed away part of the intellectual community, hostile to this kind of popular phenomenon, often pejoratively dubbed again and again as “mass culture” and “low culture”.

Appearing in the 19th century and popularised in the 20th century, football has reached the new millennium as a trend and behaviour setter, assuming itself as a complex “integral social factor” worthy of profound reflection and research by the Social, Human and Communication Sciences. The challenge of this issue is to demonstrate how football can and should be the subject of research in the academic and scientific sphere, given its social plasticity and appeal to interdisciplinary and/or multidisciplinary approaches.

Mediapolis thus includes football as a central theme, also demonstrating its avant-garde, plural and interdisciplinary nature – in line with the assumptions of the group (GiCJEP) and research centre (CEIS20) in which they are rooted. As Mediapolis’s first approach to such a complex theme, the challenge is to open and create a space for reflection and discussion on football and its relationship with the media, journalism and communication, preferably fuelled by original and innovative empirical research, extended to multiple visions and themes that question/reflect on football and how it intersects with the media, journalism and communication.

We accept contributions in various fields, including:

1. 1. 1. Theories and methodologies;
      2. History, mega-events, violence, discrimination, racism;
      3. Sexuality, gender, celebrities, fans;
      4. Cyberspace, social networks and video games;
      5. Audiences and sport spectacle;
      6. Politics, nation and identities;
      7. Aesthetics and sport culture;
      8. Cinema, photography and advertising;
      9. Ethics and deontology of communication;
      10. Informative and technological transformations.

Papers must be submitted by 30 November 2021 to be included in edition 15 of Mediapolis, in the second half of 2022. Papers should follow the publication guidelines available at https://impactum-journals.uc.pt/mediapolis/about/submissions

Languages

• • • English
    • Português
    • Español

Calendar

• • • Deadline for paper submission: By 30 November 2021
    • Feedback to authors: January 2022
    • Publication: 2nd half of 2022

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