Interaction Ritual Theory and Sports Fans
Interaction Ritual Theory and Sports Fans: Emotion, Symbols, and Solidarity
Sport Spectatorship has become and increasing focus of study. Fan behavior involves meaningful rituals and emotions. In this article Cottingham follows Randalls Collins theoretical work to examine the ritualistic outcomes of “collective effervescence”, emotional energy, and group symbols and solidarity among sports fans.
The sociological study of sport has studied fandom and fan behavior for a long time. A lot of the study focused on violence and hooliganism. A theory that focuses on ritual and emotion is Randall Collins’ theory of “interaction ritual chains” also known as the IR Theory. Cotttingham extends the theory to illustrate the emotion-based ritual experiences of fans of a US football team. She chose fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers. IR theory provides and way to understand emotion and ritual behaviors of fans and the meaning behind it.
Cottingham goes on to use Collin’s theory and modified it to fit how it can be applied to sports fans settings and situations. She analyzes fans from Heinz Field and in Pittsburgh sports bars. She wanted to see how the fans rituals and symbols differed in locations and situations. This would tell her how sports fans develop and maintain meaning and solidarity across time and space. Some scholars recognize that the meanings supplied by fan identity and emotion almost classify as some sort of religion. The meaning of fandom is vital to understanding sports fans and their behavior. Cottingham demonstrates how the IR theory can be used to understand fans behaviors and emotions in distinct fan settings. Rituals based on the settings have more emotional symbolism. The most common symbolism is wearing the teams colors. Blumer’s three main ideas of symbolic interaction are seen through this article. The first idea is that “Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things." This goes on in the article about how
Sport Spectatorship has become and increasing focus of study. Fan behavior involves meaningful rituals and emotions. In this article Cottingham follows Randalls Collins theoretical work to examine the ritualistic outcomes of “collective effervescence”, emotional energy, and group symbols and solidarity among sports fans.
The sociological study of sport has studied fandom and fan behavior for a long time. A lot of the study focused on violence and hooliganism. A theory that focuses on ritual and emotion is Randall Collins’ theory of “interaction ritual chains” also known as the IR Theory. Cotttingham extends the theory to illustrate the emotion-based ritual experiences of fans of a US football team. She chose fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers. IR theory provides and way to understand emotion and ritual behaviors of fans and the meaning behind it.
Cottingham goes on to use Collin’s theory and modified it to fit how it can be applied to sports fans settings and situations. She analyzes fans from Heinz Field and in Pittsburgh sports bars. She wanted to see how the fans rituals and symbols differed in locations and situations. This would tell her how sports fans develop and maintain meaning and solidarity across time and space. Some scholars recognize that the meanings supplied by fan identity and emotion almost classify as some sort of religion. The meaning of fandom is vital to understanding sports fans and their behavior. Cottingham demonstrates how the IR theory can be used to understand fans behaviors and emotions in distinct fan settings. Rituals based on the settings have more emotional symbolism. The most common symbolism is wearing the teams colors. Blumer’s three main ideas of symbolic interaction are seen through this article. The first idea is that “Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things." This goes on in the article about how