Sport, media, and enterteinement: not/controlled emotions and emerging social structure

(Sport, media e intrattenimento. Emozioni in/controllate e struttura sociale emergente, FrancoAngeli, Milano 2011, pp. 179, con bibliografia di riferimento (187), € 22,00, ISBN: 978-88-568-4424-5)

In his first writings of Sport Sociology Norbert Elias had already shown a sharp perception of the fertile, pleasant consequences which result from the «controlled lack of control», which the sport allows to the protected but bored people of modern society. In the stadium everyone can express his own emotions and passions in a picturesque and noisy way, whether in other moments of social life these are usually repressed, because the modern life is highly rationalized and routinized. But in the '60s, when Elias had already developed his vision of the civilizing process, the nexus between sport and entertainment wasn´t yet established, neither a global alliance between television and corporate sponsors of major sporting events was established.

This book gives an outline of the emerging social structure, which in last years has connected sport, media and corporate sponsors in a “virtuous” circuit: great sporting events draw a huge audiences, composed at the same time by fan, viewers and consumers, and their choices produce big social, economical and political effects. Theoretical reflections and analysis of the data, collected by the ISTAT during the three national surveys about sport, media and leisure in Italy (1995, 2000, 2006), provide an empirical test of the Elias’ and Dunning's reflections about sport and civilization. Moreover a lot of doubts arise about their thesis that sport offers a model of positive internal control of violence; nowadays, indeed, the “mediated” sport excites different behaviours, which raise serious questions about the future of the “post”-modern society.

Stefano Martelli is Full Professor in Sociology of Cultural Processes and Communication at the Faculty of Exercise and Sport Sciences, University of Bologna "Alma Mater Studiorum" (I).