Marks Blog, football violance and the media

2 different types, sadly go under same banner.

2008-01-13T09:50:00.000-08:00

there is a clear difference between:

a) Spontaneous and usually low level disorder caused by fans at or around football matches (the type that typically occurs at England away matches)

and

(b) Deliberate and intentional violence involving organised gangs (or 'firms') who attach themselves to football clubs and fight firms from other clubs, sometimes a long way in time and space from a match.

sometimes tabloid newspapers and news affiliates within the media have a tendancy to label both under the same title of hooligan. much like the sun newspaper did during the hillsbrough disaster.

definitions from here

Flexibility?

2008-01-13T09:42:00.000-08:00

it easy clear that the term football hooligan was created by the media to attract us the audience in. i found out on www.liv.ac.uk, that a style of reporting (sensationalist reporting) is used by tabloids to create impact and was rarely used before 1950. but during the time when organized fighting in football grounds came about it was used to hook audiences in by tabloids in an aim to sell more papers. the articles where 'edited for impact', very much like television programs are nowadays.

www.liv.ac.uk

Is it natural human facination with violence?

2008-01-11T00:40:00.000-08:00

After looking at the puzzling world of the media and football violence, i decided to take a break and just watch some TV. after flicking through numerous channels i came across a documentry on football violence, quite frankly i was sick of the sight of it. so i went to the next channel up. on that channel there was a TV program being broadcasted about riots in other countries, these images startled me as looking identicle to that of the violence shown in the media at football matches. i then changed the channel again, this time car chases with cops shooting at bad guys. again i went anouther channel up, to be greeted by the site of extremely violent video games. then once more i changed the channel to find anouther program about football violence. it all started to become clear what the media's facination was with the football hooligan actually was, or more so "our" facination with the football hooligan.

by looking at the ammount of extremely violent television programs being shown, it is clear to see that we as a modern audience enjoy watching violence. we love watching fights and adrenaline pumped momments. this is our entertainment that the media gives us. and who more violent then a large croud of football hooligans readyto do battle with one anouther? we are facinated as an audience with there lives because it is so different, so un-normal. if they where anything but what they are the media wouldnt spend so much time covering it for us and almost gloryfying them as modern day heroes, similar to that of greek epics.

Ajax vs PSV Eindhoven postponed

2007-12-16T04:48:00.000-08:00

Today a match between rivals Ajax and PSV Eindhoven postponed due to a police strike. the fear of fans rioting is too high. The mayor of Amsterdam spoke on dutch radio and said that the match would be unable to go through as scheduled because the absence of police would create unacceptable risks for public security.

all this in mind, many media outles have complained aboutthe matches not going ahead. the games between Feyenoord and AZ Alkmaar has also been put off for today.

2007-12-16T04:23:00.000-08:00

sorry ive not posted in quite a while, but im looking at the recent events within italy . only in February there was mass outrage in due to the tragic death of a policeman in a clash with fans during a riot. the riot was started because of local hooligans (ultra's) fighting in after a match between Catania and Palermo. after this a ban of football matches in italy took place, forcing UEFA and the italian FA to inspect all stadiums within Italy's top flight leagues and lower devision. so much in italy was domne to stop football hooliganism, but only recently a death of a lazio fan marred all progress of stopping football violance in italy. the fan was shot dead by a policeman after the game between lazio and internazionale (inter milan). what is startling about the whole incident is that the protest because of the shooting took place outside of Italian State TV RAI headquarters, a mnajor television and broadcasting centre in Italy. the general problem that the fans have with the media in italy is the portrayal of "all" fans being suspect to hooligan activities. this is why the police in italy are so "heavy" in dealing with fan problems.

British Cinema and The "Hooligan"

2007-09-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

In British society nowadays football violance has pretty much been eradicated, but in british film it still lives on. This leaves the question "why?". its puzzling that the media would one momment condemn football violance and yet praise the latest adaption of hooliganism in the latest films, even more strange is that there are a lot of directors that will follow suite for this hunger. be it through admiration or curiosity is a social debate, the fact is that they are being made and more often then not they glorify what they are portraying.

The TV movie "The Firm" was made in 1988 and starred Gary Oldman as a football hooligan who wants to take his "Firm" into a european football tournament with other hooligans.
This movie was before the strand of typical hooligan movies came about. While garry oldman gives one of his best performances as the main character, this movie pretty much portrays the should be villains into heroes. The movie was made for channel 4 and because of that is seen as very limited, the violance is very blunt and too the point as well as shocking. The movie was hit with backlash by the media because it shows normal members of the public as workers in the week, turned hardcore hooligans by weekend and match day.

Shocking media acceptance of hooligans

2007-08-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

After watching the documentry "football factory's: international" i found that in argentina unlike in the UK (where hooliganism is scrutinized but also glamourised) football violance is almost accepted as being a natural order. in live football matches the camera constantly zooms to the crowd and the football hooligans in the stands. the commentators would then react to something like this and name out the hooligans and even point out which "firm" they are with. its almost like the hooligans have as big a celebrity status as the football players in argentina.

the newspaper reports are just as blatent. the majority of newspapers see the hooligans as a twelth man on the field and in some ways positive. although these may be extreme case scenario's of media excetance, is our movie industry and music any different in the way they glamourise violance and football violance? surely they are the same thing.

jump across the Ocean

2007-08-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

Ive decided to look at south america as a whole to try and find out any infomation on the media reaction to football violance. the first thing i did was watch danny dyers program, The real football factories international.

click on the title "jump across the ocean" to view the full documrntry on argentina and football violance.

*WARNING* the documentry has some shocking scenes of fottball violance and use of strong lsnguage, do not watch if easilly offended*

A collective survey on the media and football violance

2007-08-10T09:01:00.000-07:00

this is an extract from the survey asking if the majority of fans beleive the media glamorizes football violance.

SECTION F - Media Influence and involvement
Q.13 Television coverage of hooliganism glorifies the issue
Q.20 The national press reinforces the problem of hooliganism amongst supporters of English professional clubs
Q.25 Media coverage of hooliganism associated with the England national team does not glorify the issue

IIII AGREE IIIIIIIIIIIIIDISAGREE IIIIIII
IIII PREM 1ST 2ND 3RD PREM 1ST 2ND 3RD
Q.13 65% 60% 54% 73% 25% 23% 35% 23%
Q.20 40% 73% 65% 77% 30% 3% 12% 0%
Q.25 15% 33% 27% 18% 55% 60% 58% 64%
Comment: The majority of the responses across divisions agree that television coverage of hooliganism glorifies the issue, with the Third Division comparatively displaying the highest level of agreement. Supporters of First, Second and Third Division clubs agree that the national press reinforces the problem, markedly more so than Premiership supporters. The table shows that collectively, the division responses disagree that media coverage of hooliganism associated with the national team does not glorify the issue.

the startling evidence is that fans believe the media by a long way jhave and still influence it. its strange as you would think the mass media would scrutinize football violance? ive decided to look at other countries now and compare the way there media works in covering football violance.

Movies Glorifying football violance.

2007-07-30T08:06:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2004 the movie "football factory" was realeased charting the exploits of a young member of a chelsea football firm. the movie was slammed by politicians as being released at the wrong time (2 months before euro 2004).

MP Tom Watson:

'It certainly sounds unfortunate and I hope the people behind the film can promote it in ways that do not glorify hooliganism and violence.

'The last thing we need is to stoke things like that up and if they are making a film like that, it could be better to postpone the release until a later date.'

The movie was then attacked after release and described as a "glorified look on football hooligans".

before the release football expert John Williams had this to say:

If the film shows a genuine account of hooliganism and its effects and takes a serious approach to make people think about it, then that's fine.

'But obviously if it is just all about the violence and groups of guys enjoying the fighting, then I'd have a different view.'

Germany 2006, hooligan violance, or yob problems? do the tabloids see it the same way?

2007-07-18T01:21:00.000-07:00

In Germany 2006 world cup there where record numbers of hooligan ans traveling to the tournament. There was also trouble that went with it. for a lot of fans it was alchohol that fueled the anger, not cell's of hooligans. Yet from the morning after, the tabloids ridiculed the fans as being a disgrace and placing the many in the same class as the few.

Infact its not the first time a tabloid has acted this way:

Football violance and the media, the patchy relationship?

2007-07-16T01:44:00.000-07:00

The Sun Started a patchy relationship with football fans with its controversial story on the hillsborough disaster, but in truh innacurate descriptions of hooigans have been used so loosely that every incident has been slanderd "Football Hooliganism" without any proper thought into it. Infact on many occasions it has been just simple crowd dissorders.

Football hooliganism is not easy to define, mainly because the media have been extremely flexible and indeterminate in ascribing the "hooligan" label to different incidents. Football hooliganism is seen by most to mean disorder involving football fans.

Possible types of research

2007-07-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

I am going to use primary and secondary research to collect information and data, this research should help me gather accurate and correct information i need to continue:

Primary research is where you conduct your own research. Good solid Examples of primary research are surveys and interviews etc.

Secondary research is research that you have looked up that has already been carried out by other people. This research can be reliable when dealing with fact based issues such as the topic I am studying "Hooliganism"

Other types of research

Ouantitative : A type of resarch, usally based on numbers, statistics or tables, that attempts to measure some kind of phenomenon and produce hard dadt. It often involves working with large groups of people.

Oualitative : Research that attempts to explain or understand something and may neccessitate much discussion and analysis of people's attitudes and other behaviour. It usually involves working with small numbers of people or focus groups.

The Essential Introduction
AS Media Studies
2nd Edition

Philip Rayner, Peter Wall and Stephen Kruger.

The Suns idea of the Hillsborough disaster, who to blame?

2007-07-11T12:31:00.000-07:00

The Hillsborough Disaster

The Hillsborough disaster was for many fans a day that changed British football and brought about the end of the football terraces (place of fighting for many hooligans). On April 15, 1989, at Hillsborough, a football stadium in Sheffield home to Sheffield Wednesday F.C. hosted The tie between Nottingham Forest F.C. and Liverpool FC in the FA Cup semi final which was billed up to be one of the biggest games of the year, whereas in truth it was one that many will want to forget. There was a deadly human crush which resulted in the death of 96 football fans (all liverpool) and injuries to many others. But the most bizarre thing that happened was from the tabloid newspaper "The Sun". The Sun looked past the obvious fact that the police showed criminal neglegance in dealing with the problem the rght way and blamed the whole incident on the liverpool fans, something that many fans have never forgiven the sun for doing. From then on the relationship between the media and football fans has become fragmented and fractured. especially when hooligan incidants come around.

On the Wednesday following the disaster, Kelvin MacKenzie, then editor of The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper with national distribution owned by Rupert Murdoch, used the front page headline 'THE TRUTH', with three sub-headlines: 'Some fans picked pockets of victims'; 'Some fans urinated on the brave cops'; 'Some fans beat up PC giving kiss of life'.

The story accompanying these headlines claimed that 'drunken Liverpool fans viciously attacked rescue workers as they tried to revive victims' and 'police officers, firemen and ambulance crew were punched, kicked and urinated upon'. A quote, attributed to an unnamed policeman, claimed that a dead girl had been abused and that Liverpool fans 'were openly urinating on us and the bodies of the dead'.

In their history of The Sun, Peter Chippendale and Chris Horrie wrote:

'As MacKenzie's layout was seen by more and more people, a collective shudder ran through the office [but] MacKenzie's dominance was so total there was nobody left in the organisation who could rein him in except Murdoch. [Everyone] seemed paralysed, "looking like rabbits in the headlights", as one hack described them. The error staring them in the face was too glaring. It obviously wasn't a silly mistake; nor was it a simple oversight. Nobody really had any comment on it—they just took one look and went away shaking their heads in wonder at the enormity of it. It was a "classic smear".'

Following The Sun's report, the newspaper was boycotted by most newsagents in Liverpool, with many refusing to stock the tabloid and large numbers of readers cancelling orders and refusing to buy from shops which did stock the newspaper. The Hillsborough Justice Campaign also organised a national boycott, which was less successful but certainly hit the paper's sales.

Early football violance in the UK

2007-07-05T03:37:00.000-07:00

Football violance has in truth been around since the early creation of the game in the 13 hundreds. Of course back then it would of been a giant street game betwen people. But organised football violance as its called has been around for only 50 or so years. Most people in the media wrongly identified it in the 1960's and around that time as a problem, which would result in certain fans being singled out as the problem. This is far from the truth as in reality every fan that goes to a match is potential trouble maker, not because they want to be but because they take the role of "reaction" to an action. The fans that start the action are the ones who are can be considered the problem.

this video of a match in 1977. It is clear to see that all of these fans are not football hooligans. Most are normal fans going to watch a football match, they are what are known as a "reaction" to the "action" which is usually started by the hooligans:

Sport and Media, Football violance?

2007-07-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

I decided to focus on sport and the media, primarily the coverage of football violance from the late 70's up to the present day. Football violance has shaped countries in ways that the average person could not contemplate. an example of such an event is the match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade on 13.05.1990. the clip below shows some pretty shocking scenes so descretion is advised:

The TV coverage sent shockwaves through Serbia and Crotia, many beleive this act hoolaganism kicked off the war between the two countries, which many lost their lives too. UEFA and FIFA have both banned Serbia from playing Croatia and ANY Croatian league teams playing ANY Serbian teams in freindly's and UEFA cup and UEFA champions league matches, such is the seriousness of the events that unfolded after the match.