Sports newspapers and national identity: Spain in the 2010 Soccer World Cup South Africa

Abstract

Football and identity is one of the most important topics when sociologists and political scientists study the world of football. Taking into account that in a democratic context football doesn´t offer an elaborate doctrine and political ideology, however highlights as element of cultural nationalization. The objective of this paper is to analyze how the media, in this case the sport press of Madrid and Barcelona, present the information about the Spanish national team in terms of Spanish national identity and Catalonian national identity.

The paper is divided into five sections. In the first part we defend the importance of football as object of study by social scientists. The second part emphasizes the importance of football as a cultural, emotional and media factor that helps create superficial and ambiguous national identities. In the third part we focus on the changes that Spanish football has experienced in the last ten years in terms of clubs (with the revitalization of the rivalry Madrid-Barcelona) and in terms of national team (with the victory of Spain in the last two major international events of national teams). In the fourth section we describe the main results of the empirical study that we carried out with the sports media published in Madrid and Barcelona. Finally, in the fifth part we conclude with some reflections about the relation-ship between football, national identity and their informative treatment in the case of the Spanish national team.