10.54103/2036-461X/18703
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2036-461X
18703
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Danilo Callea
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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - Long Live Sport. Toward an Interdisciplinary Approach to Liveness and Televised Sporting Event
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Cinéma & Cie
Danilo Callea
2022
10.54103/2036-461X/18703
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Università IULM, Milano
2036-461X
39
en
164
Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - Long Live Sport. Toward an Interdisciplinary Approach to Liveness and Televised Sporting Event
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/18703/17549
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                                                                                       Long Live Sport
                                                                                       Toward an Interdisciplinary Approach to Liveness
                                                                                       and Televised Sporting Events
                                                                                       Danilo Callea / Ph.D. Thesis Abstract1
                                                                                       Università IULM, Milano
                                                                                       DOI https://doi.org/10.54103/2036-461X/18703




                                                                                          In the current media landscape, which is           media industries are connected to aesthetic and
                                                                                       apparently dominated by new consumption habits,       linguistic trends of cultural products, including
                                                                                       both the concept of liveness and the category         sport contents. As such, the methodology follows
                                                                                       of live sport broadcasting seem to challenge          an interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary
                                                                                       the same scenario. While the conceptualization        scheme, resulting in a convergence between two
                                                                                       of liveness still represents a central topic in       main areas of studies. Sport sociology — including
                                                                                       the latest academic research on television and        what has been called ‘sport media studies’³ — is
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                                                                                       digital platforms,2 the combination of liveness       put in relation to the field of television studies,
                                                                                       and sport broadcasts requires a more in-depth         digital media studies and platform studies. Due to
                                                                                       study, highlighting new paradoxes of scholarly        the severe restrictions imposed by the pandemic
                                                                                       interest. The aim of this doctoral thesis is to       on a possible field observation, this doctoral thesis
                                                                                       explore a reconfiguration of liveness within a        consists foremost of desk research. Analyses of
                                                                                       specific case of media events: sport competitions     official guidelines, best practices and interviews
                                                                                       and tournaments. This has been enriched by the        with insiders and experts — from TV directors to
                                                                                       ongoing growth of over-the-top and so-called          IT developers and engineers — are undertaken
                                                                                       ‘sports-oriented’ streaming platforms (e.g., Dazn).   thanks to sector journals on the field of media and
                                                                                       At the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic — and         sport contents.
                                                                                       its huge effects on the experience of live cultural      The first part of the doctoral thesis consists
                                                                                       events, including sports — has played a central       in an investigation of the state of the art and
                                                                                       role on rethinking the same concept of liveness       academic debates on the concept of liveness
                                                                                       due to social limitations of face-to-face meetings.   within a wider frame: from performance and
                                                                                          The research question of the thesis is             music studies to media and television studies.
                                                                                       structured around two main issues: the relation       Deconstructing the myth of a ‘natural’ TV liveness,
                                                                                       between media and sport events, in view of            the quality of televisual live broadcast emerges
                                                                                       constructions and claims of liveness, and how this    as something ideological, rhetorical and at the
                                                                                       same construction can be historicized in a wider      same time ‘naturalized’. Following van Es’s recent
                                                                                       interpretive framework. The same concept of           theorization,⁴ the same concept of liveness is best
                                                                                       liveness here becomes a sort of ‘interdisciplinary    understood as a socio-technical construction
                                                                                       vector’: the best practices of institutions and       reconfigured by institutions, technologies, and


                                                                                       Cinéma & Cie vol. 22 no. 38 2022 · ISSN 2036-461X                                                 161
audience/users. Following this perspective,            these in the same timeline.
liveness defines both a field of tension between         The last section of the project deals with the
live events, on one hand, and media devices that       specific case of elite football within the Italian
reproduce them, on the other, alongside a request      media landscapes. Here a single football match
for social connection beyond the hic et nunc of        — treated as sort of ‘expanded spectacle’ — is
live performances.                                     constantly re-shaped by large screens in or
   However, the connection between liveness            outside of stadiums, for instance in public spaces
and sport media has required a rethinking of           and pubs. In the meanwhile, the recent embracing
these same concepts. First, the thesis identifies      of Video Assistant Referee (VAR) further confirms
some stable or synchronic coordinates — such           the tangled overlap between live performance —
as immediacy, presence, and social sharing             including sports — and its mediatization. Focusing
— as essential mechanisms involved in the              on the most recent live streaming of football
construction and claim of a possible liveness of       matches, the thesis recognises new challenges
the sports event. Second, a systemic perspective       and objects of inquiry – from IT infrastructures
on liveness is integrated by the historicization       to production values and social network
of live sports broadcasts through a long durée         interactions. The qualities of immediacy, presence
pattern of study. Third, the conceptualization         and social sharing are now constantly reshaped
of sport media is updated to the most recent           by as many outcomes: from issues involving the
perspective of ‘sport and mediatization’,5 shifting    infrastructures of content delivery networks
the analysis from a media-centric approach to a        (CDNs) to live game statistics on second screens
more media-centred one. Within this theoretical        — such as smartphone and tablets — or live video
framework, both ‘unstable accelerations’ and           chat rooms employed by football fans and users.
‘nostalgic persistence’ have been detected in the        A first perspective from this research reveals the
field of tension around liveness and televised         multi-layered influence of new technologies and
sporting events.                                       media devices on the very nature of contemporary
   The main research on the history of live sports     sports — especially the ‘sport-spectacle’. The
broadcast is approached systematically, too. Best      arrival of Covid-19 somewhat accelerated new
practices involved in the production of a televised    habits of connection between remote fans and
sports text are bound together with a study of the     audiences, including the video-presence of the
economic forces that regulate and make possible        latter inside stadiums and sports arenas too. At the
watching matches on TV, or not. At the same            same time, social distancing facilitated an almost
time, the evolution of technologies and media          unexpected desire to return to live spectators,
devices also considers audience and user habits,       and their hic et nunc presence on the stands of
including informal channels of consumption of          sports arena. Indeed, contemporary sport event is
media contents. Dating back to the early twentieth     at centre of this field of tension between ‘unstable
century, a first glimpse of liveness is apparent in    accelerations’ and ‘nostalgic persistence’ around
the rise of live scoreboards located in theatres and   the same concept of liveness.
public squares. From the first years of television       A further and significant standpoint of this
to the advent of pay-per-view, the liveness of a       doctoral thesis comprehends the importance of
televised sporting event appears as something          sports competitions on different media devices.
constantly constructed and ‘naturalized’ at the        Defusing a rhetoric of disruption, the project
same time. In this sense, the quality of liveness      highlights not only mutations and transformations
seems to define the first proto-televisual             of technologies and users’ habits, but also
experiments of live sport broadcasts, as well as       remarks on traces of continuity and unexpected
more recent live streaming OTTs, placing all of        returns. Older patterns of watching sport matches



162                                                                                Callea, Long Live Sport
live on TV or in public spaces cohabit alongside
sports simulation videogames on live streaming
platforms like Twitch. Not by chance, a sort of fil
rouge is represented by the notion of liveness
as socio-technical construction. On this path, the
(old) medium of television still appears a perfect
companion of the sporting event and its intrinsic
social request to be seen ‘now’ and ‘together’ by
an audience that is as heterogenous as possible.




Cinéma & Cie vol. 22 no. 38 2022 · ISSN 2036-461X     163
 Notes
 1
   Supervisor: Professor Daniela Cardini – Dissertation discussed on 11 July 2022. For more information:
 danilocallea@gmail.com.
 2
   Among others: Philip Auslander, Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture – 2nd Edition
 (London, New York: Routledge, 2008) and Paddy Scannell, Television and the Meaning of Live: An
 Enquiry into the Human Situation (London: Polity Press, 2014).
 3
   Media, Sports, and Society, ed. by Lawrence A. Wenner (London, New York: Sage, 1989). See also:
 Brett Hutchins and David Rowe, Sport Beyond Television: The Internet, Digital Media and the Rise of
 Networked Media Sport (London, New York: Routledge, 2012).
 4
   Karin van Es, The Future of Live (London: Polity Press, 2016).
 5
   Kirsten Frandsen, Sport and Mediatization (London, New York: Routledge, 2020).




164                                                                                 Callea, Long Live Sport
