We’re All Behind You: The Co-Construction of Turns and Sequences-at-Cheering Adrian Thaddeus Kerrison, BA and BSc Faculty of Social Sciences of Ulster University Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2018 I confirm that the word count of this thesis is less than 100,000 words 1 Contents Acknowledgements 4 Abstract 5 Declarations 6 Chapter 1: Introduction 7 The Joy of Cheering 9 The Question of Cheering 12 1.1 Students of Cheering 14 Student Sections 16 Standing Out from the Crowd 16 Independent Actors 19 1.2 Finding the Extraordinary in the Everyday 21 The Primordial Site of Sociality 24 1.3 Opening Up Cheering 26 Chapter 2: The Basis for Investigating Interaction 29 2.1 A Plurality of Reality 29 Sharing a Basis 33 Finding Meaning 38 Constitutive Sociology 43 2.2 The Advantages of a Constitutive Approach 47 Indifference 49 The Outsider’s Perspective 51 CA in Particular 55 The Chasm of Conversation 57 Beyond the Chasm 62 2.3 Implications For This Work 65 Chapter 3: Doing EM/CA for Large-Scale Cheering 68 3.1 EM/CA’s Approach to Data 71 Transcription Conventions 74 Preserving Detail by Avoiding Detail 77 Transcription Notation 80 Overlap 80 Motion Variables 82 Cadence and Emphasis 85 3.2 This Work’s Approach to Doing EM/CA 88 “Any-mization” 89 Framing the Population 96 2 The Arena 97 The Game Participants 100 The Arena Production 103 The Crowd 104 Data Gathering 107 Data Analysis 112 3.3 The Consideration of Strategy 114 Avoiding the Head 118 The Institution of Cheering 122 Tradition Canons 127 A Set of Assurances 130 Chapter 4: Opening Up Crowds 133 4.1 Defining Audiences 136 The Event Model of Sports Audiences 140 A Recipient Model of Audiences 141 “Audience” as a Shared Status in a Participation Framework 145 4.2 Unity of Status 149 Breaking Unity of Status 153 Maintaining Unity of Status 159 4.3 Batch Participation 169 The Student Section as a Participant Batch 172 A United State of Disattention 175 Exploring Batch Production 177 Chapter 5: Requirements For Collaboration 179 5.1 Tradition Canons 181 Novice and Expert Participants 186 5.2 Ready: Relevance 191 Conspicuous Happenings 193 Self-Selection 201 5.3 Set: Practice Alignment 204 Practice Type Alignment 206 Practice Form Alignment 208 5.4 Go: Projectability 213 Projectability at All Points 217 Chapter 6: Cheering Conventions 220 6.1 Response Cries 221 6.2 Response Clusters 225 Obstructive “OH”-ing 227 Utilizing “Smudge” 230 6.3 Chanting 232 Nakamura Entrance 235 3 Chanting Cadences 240 Initial Tutorial Turns 244 Chanting Length 250 6.4 Routines 256 Section-External Orientation 263 Challenges of Section-External Orientation 266 Section-Internal Orientation 271 Chapter 7: Conclusion 281 The Next Course of Action 283 5.1 Altered Game States 284 Free Throws 286 Determining The Alteration 291 5.2 Resource Shifts 298 Section-Adjacent Goaltender Taunts 300 5.3 Garbage Time 304 Early Celebrations 308 Perilous Play 311 5.4 The Promise of this Study 313 References 317 4 Acknowledgements I would first like to thank Prof. Mardi Kidwell for introducing me to conversation analysis - and the idea I could do original research in general - at the University of New Hampshire. Also to UNH’s Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research, for funding my first significant inquiry into this topic as an undergraduate and making me feel valued as a researcher from the start. The data the allowed for the vast majority of this work could not have been collected without the support of the UNH Athletic Department and the ‘Cat Pack Captains. I would like to also give special thanks to Northeastern University for always being particularly open and welcoming to me as a researcher, simply out of an academic dedication to supporting inquiry. No word of this work could have been possible without the efforts of my PhD supervisor Dr. Catrin Rhys. Most immediately because I would still be mulling it over in my head without her ordering me to write it all down, but also because her dedication to me as a student and person, and her knowledge as a researcher, forged me from a curious person with an interesting idea into a professional academic who could do something about it. Also vital were the honed challenges of Prof. John Wilson, which quickly taught me the level of thought and defense I would need to reach, and warm conversations with Dr. Anthea Irwin that helped keep me positive during a difficult final year. Finally, I want to thank my family. My brothers for looking after me my whole life, and for setting such impressive examples for me to continue climbing after. My father, who always warned us away from settling for the practical move over what we wanted, and worked so hard to make it possible for us to achieve what we wanted. And, especially, I want to thank my mother for my life, her time, and her love. She always believed I’d do something with words someday. 5 Abstract The goal of this research is to investigate sports fan cheering as a collaborative undertaking. This is primarily done by examining video data of informal cheering groups called Student Sections at intercollegiate Ice Hockey contests. Additional video and anecdotal data of spectators at other sports and audiences at other types of performance are also used to illustrate and contrast various forms of en mass collaboration in spectators. The data is addressed from an ethnomethodological perspective, using conversation analysis to break down both the instances of cheering and the sport’s play into sequences of turns to see how the turns at cheering orient to the turns at play. The analysis shows that Student Sections orient to a range of factors and interaction resources within the game and within the Section itself. This is done in order to collaborate on the performance of shared turns as a whole and to achieve proper meaning with those turns by managing their placement within the sequence of the game being watched. For the realm of interaction research this study hopes to expand the view of what can constitute a social actor beyond individuals. To this end a new form of social actor is proposed where individuals may mutually coordinate to not just talk amongst themselves but talk as one shared self, engaging as a recognizably unified actor in interactions with external actors. For sport itself a detailed understanding of cheering as a process of interaction offers a radically different approach to understanding fan participation and involvement than current studies focused on unilateral psychological factors like excitement and attachment. With new tools to investigate larger-scale interactions via EM/CA and a better understanding of the vital role interaction plays in cheering it is hoped that this research will promote greater investigation of sport as a research topic in interaction and greater use of interaction research in the management of sport. 6 Declarations I hereby declare that with effect from the date on which the thesis is deposited in Research Student Administration of Ulster University, I permit 1. the Librarian of the University to allow the thesis to be copied in whole or in part without reference to me on the understanding that such authority applies to the provision of single copies made for study purposes or for inclusion within the stock of another library. 2. the thesis to be made available through the Ulster Institutional Repository and/or EThOS under the terms of the Ulster eTheses Deposit Agreement which I have signed. IT IS A CONDITION OF USE OF THIS THESIS THAT ANYONE WHO CONSULTS IT MUST RECOGNISE THAT THE COPYRIGHT RESTS WITH THE AUTHOR AND THAT NO QUOTATION FROM THE THESIS AND NO INFORMATION DERIVED FROM IT MAY BE PUBLISHED UNLESS THE SOURCE IS PROPERLY ACKNOWLEDGED. 7 Chapter 1: Introduction It is a Saturday night. The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) is hosting the University of Miami in a game of American Football. There are five seconds left in the game. Virginia Tech is leading, Miami has the ball and one chance left to score and win. Miami uses a “timeout” to stop the game and allow the players to go the side of the field and talk over strategy with their coaches. Moments later, the stadium speakers blare the opening notes of “Enter Sandman” by the heavy metal rock band Metallica. It’s the unofficial “fight song” of Virginia Tech, as it is the song that introduces the home team for their entrance into the stadium before games. A roar fills the stadium, as the 66,233 people inside start yelling. The students and marching band jump and down in time with the music, some older fans stay seated, but smile and wave their hands in the air as others jump around them. One of the commentators describes Miami’s difficulty in finding open (unguarded) players to give the ball to, and the other commentator, a former college football player himself, pipes in: 8 “Let me tell you what has become open. This crowd. That ​ ​ makes the task of [Miami Coach] and [Star Player] that much more difficult. You lose a little bit of your composure and your focus and understanding....” The Virginia Tech players walk back out onto the field and turn to the stands; waving their arms up into the air, encouraging the crowd to make even more noise. After the second commentator’s analysis the first commentator picks up the thread, chuckling as he talks: “Look at this.