Juan velez

2019, October,17
Professor Dieterle

Revision Memo
When I first wrote my research proposal I was blindly writing without taking the rubric Formatted: Font: 12 pt
into consideration. On a deeper even more serious note I was not acknowledging the
root of the paper which was to get an understanding for what the soccer community
writing was all about and analyzing the participatory culture in the community. After I
was able to take a look at the feedback that I recieved on my original essay I was able
to make some big changes to the paper that I feel are a more clear representation of the
topic and also provide some defintion on the major topics that I was supposed to be
discussing originally.
The first major change I made was I tried to tie in all the information I had about
soccer journalism with the networks that there are for fanatics. Therefore I had to revise
even my introduction and tie together the participatory culture there is in the soccer
community, so that the reader could understand that I was not just focusing my writing
on sports journalism. In order to better explain it after introducing it I then had to present
examples of how the soccer community is closely related and present some of the
platforms they might use,
When revising my essay rubric I noticed that although I seemed to be very cultured
on the nature of sport journalism and the soccer community as a whole I didn't explain
the type of relation I had to it. I dedicated a whole paragraph to explaining why I like to
be an active member in the community. I went deep into personal views of the
community and how it has facilitated my understanding on many doubts. I then
proceeded to give a brief description of the platforms that are popular within the
community and how i use them personally. When writing about my relation to the
community and how it affects me day to day I tried to be genuine and put my passion for
it into words.
Prior to writing the research proposal there were many in class readings that were
given to use to my advantage. Unfortunately I only slightly mentioned the Greene
reading.My peer review partner recommended that I use more of the readings used in
class However this time around i made sure to use these important resources. Jenkins
is centered around participatory culture a topic that is very much prevalent to my paper,
therefore I explained how participatory culture parallels soccer journalism by explaining
how members of the community feel valued and have the correct platforms to open up
discourse and inform one another. I also remembered that the writing style of a
particular community is important so as a result I found ways to tie in another couple
quotes about Greene, this worked to perfection because Greene talks about how
important it is to pay attention to rhetoric and the questions that journalist as well as
users raise. The soccer community as I later explained is a very passionate one so the
fact that I was now analyzing rhetoric was very beneficial for me because it is a unique
one.
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2019, October,17
Professor Dieterle
Finally I was able to find another source that was actually pertinent to the topic of
participatory culture. The article I found talked about how a team embraced participatory
culture rather than being intimidated by it. As a result of a whole bunch of new
information being added and a change in scope of research I also had to strive away
from my general information about soccer journalism so therefore I had to delete big
chunks of information that were no longer useful and kind of redundant. Overall I feel
that my paper is now a lot more clear and concise about the topic at hand and relates
the readings and main idea of participatory culture in a way that makes sense.

Research Proposal

Soccer journalism covers every aspect of the game whether that be in game
performance scrutinization or even discussing the slightest of transfer rumours for
players.The way journalist have such a big pull in the worlds most popular game is
something impressive and worth taking a dive deep into. That is why I am going to be
finding whether these journalists have an impact on the outcome of player morale and
club dynamic and if so to what extent.It is important to clarify that when talking about
soccer journalism it is not necessarily limited to just standard press publishing, in the
world of football there is extensive networks for fanatics:to inform the rest of the
community, ask questions to open up discourse, and provide their input. Footballers
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2019, October,17
Professor Dieterle
are very emotionally intelligent and have been accustomed to take criticism but it has
been seen in the past how some of them break under pressure so given this I am very
excited to see the process behind how this all happens.
Staying updated with the large influx of information in the soccer community is a
big deal for me, there is so much that happens beyond those 90 minutes of weekly
soccer matches. I for example like to be knowledgeable on predictive journalism, what I
mean by this is I like to have experts on soccer make predictions prior to the game
explaining what the tempo of the game will be like as well as possible scores. The
soccer community is widely spread across several mass media platforms but
discovering those content creators that have similar views or interesting takes is a very
rewarding feeling. For me it is bigger than just staying updated with the news it is all
about the interaction and feeling of grandeur when I clarify other users on a certain
subject. I am a part of several Subreddits and follow twitter accounts and the joy they
bring me is immense, I have gotten to the point where I look forward to discussing about
how the game unfolded just as much as I look forward to the game itself. The soccer
community is so accessible and radiant with conversation that in a sense it makes me
feel like a part of something bigger.
For these sources of journalism shock value is what sells so there is always going
to be an element of exaggeration in anything that is said, the titles will want to hook the
reader and word choice will tend to make the situation out of control. Sometimes it is
constructive criticism that can be judging a player in the sense that he needs more
preparation for his upcoming matchup however most of the time it is outright negative.
Some of these pieces that are written are done objectively but in many times there is
already a general bias against the player because of something such as the price tag he
carries. Given that the community is so extensive this also makes it hard for readers to
filter all the information they are thrown,within the social media age that we live in today
a false article can easily be shared and retweeted by a simple mistake. This
phenomena of fake news impacts many because everyone in that persons network will
be exposed to it because of a simple share or retweet. “In learning to argue within an
academic setting, such as the one you probably find yourself in now, it is useful to think
about writing as a form of inquiry in which you convey your understanding of the claims
people make, the questions they raise, and the conflicts they address.”(Greene,2001)
when you read a text you have to understand the deeper meaning of the text and truly
find what the rhetoric is composed of. The way I interpret what Greene is saying is that
you have to put yourself in the authors shoes and know his purpose for writing the
specific piece. In soccer journalism many articles are written with passion and strong
views so as a reader and more importantly a researcher it is important to notice the
narrative being pushed. When conducting my research I asked myself what the author
was trying to convey, so I could read from a neutral standpoint. The questions that were
raised throughout the articles I read were intended to make the reader truly think.”Jeff
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2019, October,17
Professor Dieterle
Rueter of St. Paul writes about soccer for The Athletic. He agreed that the women's
team faced criticism in a way that men's teams do not. For them, success is a double-
edged sword”.(Fornoff,2019) this was not necessarily a direct question but it does make
the reader think because throughout the womens world cup the narrative was set to
criticize them and the journalism community sort of came together to call their actions
against other teams disrespectful. This article is a great representation of what I mean
because it makes the reader take a closer look at the criticism and really analyze
whether it is justified or merely just a product of double standards.
When we think of a community we generally assume that there is interaction within it
to keep it functional. All the communication that happens within a community can be put
under the umbrella of participatory culture.To better understand participatory culture we
must first define it, participatory culture is defined as “Where members feel some
degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people
think about what they have created).”(Jenkins,2006) this is just one of the multiple
requirements that are needed for a thriving participatory culture, however I decided to
focus on this one because I felt that without a sense of meaningful contribution users
would not want to participate. With the current state of technology participatory culture
has substantially grown due to how much the internet has facilitated communication.
Heather Lawver was only 14 when she embarked on the journey to give back to the
community by setting up an online platform that helped improve reading and writing
skills(Jenkins,2006) throughout the article there are examples of many kids just like
Heather who used the internet as a medium. While reading this a lot of the communities
I was reading about paralleled what I was researching with soccer journalism. As I
mentioned earlier there are whole subreddits and a plethora of threads that focus on the
discussion of soccer news. In order to have these threads there has to be a user who
took initiative and created the subreddit so people can post daily discussions,
information about streams, and post underrated opinions.
It is no secret that soccer twitter has a big pull on the game as well but rather then
deny it clubs have decided to embrace the large participatory culture that exists within
the sport. “In this sense, brands can increase their engagement with fans in numerous
ways, and the establishment of virtual brand communities, such as Facebook pages
and forums, have been one of the key choices of managers.”(Zanini,2019) there is so
much talking that is done throughout the teams campaign(campaign is the summation
of all the events that occur over a year for a club). Hashtags are a big driving force in
the twitter community, for example if a team is playing there will be a hashtag that will
be trending and the twitter user can express his opinion using the hashtag,immediately
his thoughts are communicated with the entire community who is on that hashtag.
Soccer clubs can encourage discourse by having the official team twitter tweet out the
hashtags and have fans discussing about a wide variety of topics. “The Twitter profile of
São Paulo FC (i.e. @SaoPauloFC) has been selected because it is a significant player
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2019, October,17
Professor Dieterle
in South American and global soccer, with over 16m fans in Brazil.”(Zanini,2019) this is
the team that the study was conducted on and is a prime example of how large of a
following can be built to later expand the clubs image and control the narrative through
twitter as well as inform fans of team news.

Neymar one of the sports biggest players was booed in a home game by local
fanatics.”After Saturday's game he once again confirmed his desire to leave Paris, but
claimed he has no intention of downing tools despite fans booing him”(Polden,2019) the
reason for all of this tension as you can guess was created by the media because he
was closely linked with other clubs and many reports were made that he was unhappy
in the french capital. Another example of this was how the manager of Sporting Lisbon a
soccer club in portugal had to resign so that the players would stop leaving. Allegedly
many of the players told the press that he conducted psychological abuse on them this
is a prime example of how the press diffuses internal scandals in the club and can leave
their mark on the game.
It is no secret that Tthe press is very toxic players are constantly getting bashed and
at many times it can create division between club supporters and the players or the
team directors. There are many important newspapers in England that are known for
soccer and have a big input on what is said in the community some examples of this are
The Sun,The Mirror, and The Star.They have been around for over 100 years and have
created some large scandals in football history. Many are sex scandals that revolve
around the players but other scandals have to do with club fund allocations and more
important things. Regardless of what kind of scandal it is it will always end up in threads
where the community of soccer fans can make certain scandals go viral through the use
of sharing them and formulating opinions. The community of soccer journalism aswell
as users has so much power acting as the watchdogs of the community that their
actions can cause repercusions on the business side of things.In fact the pressure
these media sources place during interviews is so intense that a club in England named
Liverpool banned The Sun from ever coming on its premises ever again. The toxic
nature of these outlets can parallel even deeper social issues such as double standards
on women; when the USA women's national team was playing in the latest world cup
there was a lot of talk about their celebrations which were unique and different every
time in one case ”It's U.S. women's soccer star forward Alex Morgan pretending to sip a
cup of tea —pinkie in the air and all — after scoring a goal that clinched a World Cup
semifinal win against England.” (Fornoff,2019) this is what you would typically expect in
a moment of glory and passing on to the next instance of the tournament. However the
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Professor Dieterle
media had a very different interpretation of what this was, the women's national team
was made out to seem as childish and cocky. Where the double standards comes into
play is that showboating after a win or an accomplishment is a natural thing in the NBA
and all these other high level intensity sports but rather than get criticized Kevin Durant
can celebrate because he knows he is the best.
With disregard to all of the negatives that I have previously mentioned there are a
plethora of benefits of having the media so heavily involved in soccer. Soccer fanatics
have plenty of sources and communities that can keep them up to date on who their
club might want to purchase in the off season aswell as reports of their team after the
game and it gets as specific as they want with in game reports of every player on the
squad. It is unquestionable that having a plethora of articles on soccer news is an
exciting thing for the sport. Not only is it useful to keep up with transfers but the media
acts as the law in the sport because everything is exposed such as any kind of abuse
from police to fans or locker room issues it varies but they are all most definitely
necessary. The media is like the invisible hand that keeps everything in check and
condemns immoral behavior such as racist acts during the game or incidents outside
the pitch such as drunk driving which deserve all the attention they get and end up on
forums and all over Instagram and Twitter..
When talking about participatory cultures the general stigma is that there is exposure
and various social interactions that at the end of the day allow credit to be given where it
is due. In an article that I was reading by Jjenkins he clearly explains the nature of the
principle itself “ Not every member must contribute, but all must believe they are free to
contribute when ready and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued.”
(Jenkins,2006)
I think in the soccer journalism world there is plenty of participatory culture journalist
take opinions from other journalist all the time and there is talk shows, on top of all of
this there is soccer twitter where fans can decide what should be discussed next and
surveys that dictate statistics commonly seen.

In conclusion there is absolutely no question that soccer community is one that is

very tightly knit together it is like a slippery slope a report from a journalist can having
meaningful impact on player morale and even on their future in terms of whether they
are liked by the directors of the club and the fans. It is also a very positive community
where people display a large amount of opinions and refute them in hopes of declaring
important opinions about lineups and mistakes that changed the game. I think in the
soccer journalism world there is plenty of participatory culture journalist take opinions
from other journalist all the time and there is talk shows, on top of all of this there is
soccer twitter where fans can decide what should be discussed next and surveys that
dictate statistics commonly seen. In a community like this fans feel like their opinions
matter on voting for best player awards and voicing their opinions through social media
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Professor Dieterle
which can be destructive but also makes it a community where players always get the
credit they deserve or teams if that is the instance and im glad to feel like I have a slight
impact on the community through my actions.

References
(I. A. F. P. G. (2019, September 14). Neymar responds to PSG fans booing him and confirms
he wanted to leave. Retrieved from https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/neymar-
responds-psg-fans-booing-20065217

Henry Jenkins. (2006, October 20). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media
Education for the 21st Century (Part One). Retrieved from
http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2006/10/confronting_the_challenges_of.html

Double standard? Players, fans push back on criticism of U.S. women's soccer. (n.d.). Retrieved
from https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/07/07/players-fans-push-back-criticism-us-
womens-soccerhttps://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/07/07/players-fans-push-back-criticism-
us-womens-soccer

Zanini, M. T. (2019, October 7). Soccer and Twitter: Virtual Brand Community Engagement
Practices. Retrieved October 18, 2019, from https://www-emerald-
com.ezproxy.net.ucf.edu/insight/content/doi/10.1108/MIP-08-2018-0371/full/html.
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2019, October,17
Professor Dieterle