Touchdown: The Representation of in in Selected Media

Diplomarbeit

zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Magisters der Philosophie

an der Karl-Franzens-Universität

vorgelegt von Florian PÖLZL

am Institut für: Amerikanistik Begutachter(in): Univ.-Prof. Dr. M.A Stefan Brandt

Graz, 2020

Declaration on Plagiarism

I hereby confirm that this term paper entitled

Touchdown: The Representation of American Football in Austria in Selected Media

is the result of my own independent academic work. All sources (books, articles, essays, dissertations, the internet, etc.) are cited correctly in this paper; quotations and paraphrases are acknowledged. No material other than that listed has been used. I also certify that this paper or parts thereof have not been used previously as examination material (by myself or anyone else) in another course at this or any other university.

Your name in capital letters:

FLORIAN PÖLZL

Your signature:

Place: Graz Date: 18.05.2020

Danksagung

An dieser Stelle möchte ich mich bei all denjenigen bedanken, die mich während der Anfertigung dieser Diplomarbeit unterstützt und motiviert haben.

Zuerst gebührt mein Dank Univ.-Prof. Dr. M.A. Stefan Brandt, der meine Diplomarbeit betreut und begutachtet hat. Für die hilfreichen Anregungen und die konstruktive Kritik bei der Erstellung dieser Arbeit möchte ich mich herzlich bedanken.

Diese Arbeit ist all jenen gewidmet, die sich aktiv für den American Football Sport engagieren und dabei helfen, ihn zu verbreiten.

Table of contents

1. Introduction 1 2. America’s Game – an Overview 4 2.1. American Football in Austria 6 2.2. The Origins of Austrian Football 7 2.3. Patriotism in Austria 8 2.4. Leagues, Clubs and Seasons 10 2.5. Demographics of the Austrian Football Divisions 11 2.6. The Rise of a Foreign Sport 12 3. An Introduction to Representation 14 3.1. Semiotics 17 3.2. Language 18 4. Approaching Media Analysis – Fundamental Aspects of Selected Media 19 5. PULS 4 Football Programme Commercial 21 5.1. Sensationalist Physicality 22 5.2. The Male Body as a Tool 23 5.3. Breaking the Old, Establishing the New 25 5.4. The Message 27 6. The Image in Social Media 28 6.1. Self-Representation in a Masculine Sport 30 6.2. (Hyper) Masculinity 32 7. Representing Football in Print Media 38 7.1. Hard-Boiled – and Confused 39 7.2. Names and Rules 42 8. Summary of Findings 43 9. Conclusion 44 10. Works Cited 48 11. Electronic Sources 50

1. Introduction

Sport is an essential part of various cultures and its omnipresence in society is undeniable. Moreover, certain sports seem to fascinate us more than other. One may keep watching a specific type of sport and begin to question oneself why exactly this type of sport seems to be so highly appealing. From a personal point of view, I am attracted to American football. Before I entered the football sphere by chance, I thought of it as the most competitive and violent sport I could have imagined.

However, since I actively started playing in a Styrian football club located in the south of Austria, my perception of the sport drastically. My knowledge of football as a was not as developed as it has become over the past few years. When I reflect upon my previous assumptions of football and how my concept of football changed into what it is as of now, I began to question certain aspects of this sport. How do others perceive football in Austria? How could a foreign sport like football ever be established in a different country? How is football depicted in the media? Are there other perceptions of football instead of the one-dimensional aspect of a brute sport? If so, how are they shown? Which aspects of the sport are implied through representation?

In order to find answers to these questions, I made the decision to analyze a selection of Austrian media which represent football in their respective content. The first media outlet under scrutiny will be a commercial for the broadcast programme of a private TV channel, PULS 4. Secondly, the social media post of an Austrian football team, which depicts a run play accompanied by co-text in the form of hashtags. The third medium which I considered as relevant for this paper is a news article in the Kleine Zeitung, covering a typical training of a Styrian football club consisting of a photograph and an article text.

The main goal of this paper is to analyze, interpret and eventually compare the content of the different types of media. It is in this sense the aim to both locate differences and similarities regarding the way of representing football as a sport in Austria. In order to understand the sport as a whole, it is necessary to begin with an overview and a short historical introduction to American football. Since the emphasis of this paper lies on the representation of football in Austrian media, the second chapter will include the history, emergence and establishment of 1 football in Austria. However, since it is not a sport that originated in Austria, it is a necessary for this paper to approach the historical aspects of football in America.

Since the selected media outlets strongly differ from another, I chose to include an overview of the different media types in order to provide a sensitization of their respective key characteristics. In order to analyze the media content within the same frame, I chose to include a theoretical framework of semiotics. The third chapter will provide an overview of the utilization of signs, which range from photographs, to texts and even clothing. Therefore, an introduction to signifying practices and their respective role regarding representation are crucial to purpose of this paper. One must first understand how signs work before one can understand how far the vast concepts of signs reach.

The second goal of this paper is to determine how the media outlets chosen for this paper represent football. In other words, an analysis of the presentation of the content will be executed. This analysis in turn will be interpreted according to the messages and meanings that are conveyed. In order to understand basic features of the media in this paper, chapter four will outline key features of the selected media outlets. Considering the aspect of the strongly differentiating types under scrutiny in this paper, I will approach the reader towards a broad sensitization of the characteristics of the different media included in this paper.

Chapter five will revolve around a television commercial promoting the broadcast of the (NFL) NFL in the Austrian private TV channel PULS 4. The commercial advertises the live broadcasting of the NFL in Austrian TV, drawing on certain stereotypical assumptions about football. Television programmes have slowly but steadily begun to show football on live TV. German TV channels such as Pro7 were among the first ones to incorporate NFL games into their TV programme. Recently, even the state owned ORF Sport+ started to broadcast games of the on national television. The PULS 4 commercial will be analyzed according to its content and the resulting message.

Social media – a relatively young medium compared to the others in this paper will be examined in chapter number six. With a broad reach within social networks, content not only easily spreads, but is also suggested to users. Algorithms detect user behavior and in turn create tailor made proposals for potentially interesting sights. Since social media has established itself within the new media, it appears to be of interest to analyze football related content on

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Instagram. In order to do so, a social media posting of a division 4 team called Huskies Wels will be scrutinized. Social media posts are particularly interesting because the content is user generated, therefore there is more direct sense of self-representation within these posts, since profiles are generally managed by members of the team.

In the final chapter regarding the analytical part of this paper, an online newspaper article will be analyzed. Newspapers are still one of the most consumed media in Austria. A newspaper article about the Styrian Reavers in the Kleine Zeitung is in the focus of this chapter. The article covers a typical training day of the football club. Curiously, newspaper articles in general do not cover as much football content compared to other media. Since football is not considered to be a mainstream sport in Austria, it is therefore the more interesting how football related content appears in a newspaper. The findings of these aforementioned analytical chapters will be summarized and wrapped up in order to receive a more condensed view on basic similarities and differences regarding representation of football in Austrian media.

I consider my research as a contribution to the better understanding of football as a sport. My individual goal for this paper is to demonstrate how the Austrian media depicts the sport and to provide more information about other positive aspects of football. My assumption is that the general population of Austria considers football as a sport of perfected violence within a legal framework, mainly because of the lack of information about the fascinating facets it potentially has.

Finally, I would like to provide a short disclaimer about the nature of the topic. Since football is a fringe sport in Austria, there are in turn few sources that directly relate to the topic. My main sources consist of secondary works and internet resources, since otherwise the writing of this paper would not have been possible. To my knowledge, there does not exist a similar paper within the sphere of Austrian scholars, therefore I consider this writing as pioneering work in cultural studies.

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2. America’s Game – an Overview

The National Football League, which generates more than $12 billion in revenue, is the most profitable of the major American professional sports leagues, earning attention from fans around the world (Statista 2017, online). Mexico, Brazil, Canada, South Korea, and are just a few of the countries outside of the U.S. with a significant number of people who identify as NFL fans (Statista 2015, online).There are several factors that may contribute to the NFL’s popularity within the sports community, one of which is the establishment of unique brand personalities for each team. There are 32 teams in the NFL, and most fans can associate a specific tone or characteristic with each of these teams because of their brand personality. These personalities are often reflective of a combination of traits, including number of wins, team reputation, and fan behavior.

Because football teams represent various areas of the country, fanbases possess the choice to select a team they identify the most with. Values of teams, which include unique historical backgrounds and certain star figures, eventually leads to a degree of fan loyalty, which is usually deemed as long lasting. Similar to consumers preferring to purchase the brand they prefer the most, sports fans support their favorite chosen team. Executing the actual sports act, as in actually performing a sport, as well as the behavior outside the stadium are part of the characteristics of sports teams, which are communicated to consumers i.e. the fans. During actual games and press conferences, the portrayed behavior of a team is a crucial element to the overall reputation of a team. Additionally, how a team chooses to directly display itself through the website is an essential aspect as well (Echevarria 2017: 96).

American football has become increasingly popular in Austria. Every year, more and more Austrian football teams are registered in the AFBÖ (American Football Bund Österreich). Additionally, there has been an increase of football broadcasts in German and Austrian television. There is evidence for the popularity of football in Austria. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the representation of American football in Austrian media and to interpret and analyze the findings made.

American football has its roots in a mixture of what Europeans generally understand as football – i.e. soccer – and rugby. While the sport of rugby itself originated out of soccer in England, soccer can be considered the original frame of the sport. As both sports travelled across the 4

Atlantic into America, they soon reached the colleges and universities. The result of these institutions embracing these new sports was a fusion of the two, which is now commonly known as football.

There is no clear indicator when American football, in its known form nowadays, was exactly invented. Rather, a combination of rugby and soccer with several custom and varying sets of rules were played. These matters changed when the first game of was carried out between Rutgers and Princeton in 1869 in New Jersey. The circumstances which distinguished the game from others before were that it was played under a fixed set of rules regarding touching and kicking the ball, as well as counting points. Although this game was played with 25 players on both sides, it established the fundamentals of the modern football game (Smith, online).

What in the end resulted in the formation of the NFL emerged in 1920, when the APFA (American Professional Football Association) was founded. It consisted of 14 teams and soon faced an expansion to 22 teams. However, the collegiate games still had a great amount of influence on the way the game was to be played. The NFL was formally named in the year 1922 and by 1930, the rules for passing were modified in such a way, that game inched closer towards the modern playstyle of American football. By 1932, championship games were introduced and after WWII, more teams were developed in the NFL. A key moment in the history of the NFL was the broadcast of the 1958 championship on live TV. Since 1959, the counterpart to the National Football League, called the American Football League, started to become a rival. Eventually, the both football leagues merged into the NFL. The fossils of this merger can still be found nowadays, as there are two football conferences in the NFL: the AFC (American Football Conference) and the NFC (National Football Conference) (Altaweel, online).

American football is the most watched sport in the United States of America and has an ever- increasing fan base across the globe. With the being the NFL season finale, which grossed 98 million viewers on average, it can be argued that approximately every third US American watched the 53rd round of this spectacle.

This team sport originating from the U.S. is less renowned in Austria. However, it is becoming more and more popular. In American football, the ball is not round, but oval. A team consists of 11 players and a game has no half times as in football, but four quarters, each lasting 12

5 minutes. To score points, the ball must be brought into the opponent's end zone. One can throw the ball to another player or run it over the field. One might have the impression that for this sport one has to be strong and able to resist physical contact. If one wants to stop an opposing player and prevent him from scoring points, one might be knocked over and brought to the ground which is also called tackling. One variation is Flag football, in which the players wear small flags on a belt. Instead of tackling, only the flags are pulled off to stop an attacker. American football depends on strength, speed and tactics. Prerequisites are commonly the ability to throw, catch and run well, but also a sense of team spirit and enjoying competition.

2.1.American Football in Austria

Austria, with its geographical features, offers an overall exceptional outdoor experience regarding sports. With its many lakes, mountains and lush landscapes, there are numerous possibilities of outdoor activities. As of April 17, 2019, statista.com listed swimming, biking, hiking, jogging and skiing (in descending order) as the most favourite sports activities, which are at least done occasionally by . According to this statistic, soccer is ranked on the 10th place, whereas American football does not appear at all in this ranking. Generally speaking, soccer is the most popular club sport in Austria with a large fan base and financial support.

Club soccer has its very own place in Austrian history and culture. Even in smaller towns and villages, soccer clubs with a decent number of players can easily be found and joined as well. To play soccer, minimal equipment is required: shin guards, knee highs and cleats. On the other hand, far more pieces of equipment are needed to play football: a helmet, a shoulder pad, two pairs of padded pants, a mouth piece, gloves, a jersey and cleats. Financially speaking, the equipment for American football surpasses the one for football by far. American football equipment is scarce in Austria, with only 1 vendor stationed in . Additionally, the risk of sport related injuries is greater in American football, since blocks and tackles are frequent and within the legal framework of the sport. Furthermore, American football relies on utilizing the whole body, including arms and hands.

Despite these seemingly daunting features, American football experiences a boom in the Austrian sports sector over the past years. The Bundes-Sportorganisation (BSO), which is the Austrian federal sports organisation, whose purpose is the representation of interests and service

6 organisation of organised sport in Austria, documents the Austrian registered sport clubs and members. The listed member statistics are collected in the course of the preparation of the annual sports yearbook and represent the data reported by the member associations.

In the year 2010, there were 36 officially registered American football clubs in Austria, with a total member count of 5.420 (see Sport Austria, online). As of December 31, 2018, the BSO lists 73 registered clubs with 8.630 members (see Sport Austria, online). In other words, the number of American football clubs in Austria more than doubled within 8 years, and the number of club members increased by 37.2%.

American football has become increasingly established in Austria since the 1980s. Every year, more and more Austrian Football teams are registered in the AFBÖ (American Football Bund Österreich), with 43 currently registered official Austrian football teams allowed to participate in the Austrian Football League (AFL) (American Football Bund Österreich, online).

As an additional evidence for the continuous rise of popularity of American football in Austria, the head coach of the Styrian Reavers, Norbert Baumann, claims that football is still considered as a new sport in Austria, and therefore exhibits a certain uniqueness. He also states that every team is required to advertise themselves in order to attract an audience. The people come to watch the game and want to revisit, because the sport is tactical, thrilling and requires team spirit (Interview with coach Norbert Baumann, online).

2.2.The Origins of Austrian football

1984 was the year in which American football in Austria was steered into tracks. It was the first time that an official championship was played. One of the first of clubs – the Vienna Ramblocks – was founded in 1978. Shortly after the founding of the Vienna Vikings, they faced the competing Lions. The game took place in pouring rain and ended unflatteringly for the Vikings. Thus, the foundation for a steady development was laid. Because building on this early development, the sporting success at European level may be explained. Starting at the turn of the millennium, Austrian clubs increasingly established themselves at European level. Particularly noteworthy is the winning streak of the Vienna Vikings, who won the , the most prestigious title in European amateur football, five times in a row from 2004 to 2007.

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An impressive series that only came to an end in 2014, when the Eurobowl final had to be held without an Austrian participant for the first time in 14 years.

The largest international tournament in Austria to date was held in 2011. Austria was chosen as the venue for the Football World Cup. However, the World Cup was disappointing for the hosts, since the Austrian national team only finished last in its group, but still won the match for seventh place against Australia. As expected, the USA became world champions. But despite the disappointing performance, the final in the Ernst-Happel-Stadium in Vienna gave the sport another enormous boost in popularity (Klepsch 2017, online).

2.3.Patriotism in Austria

Since American football is closely linked to the United States national identity, it proves helpful to analyze the degree of patriotism among Austrians. Patriotic notions are constantly appearing throughout American football in the US. At the opening ceremony of the Super Bowl, it is perfectly normal for US Marines to carry banner flags onto the field and after the national anthem has been performed, fighter jets of the air force fly across the top of the stadium. A specific week in any weekly NFL regular season is dedicated to supporting the military troops stationed in foreign parts of the world. Finally, every year a camouflaged edition of the football teams merchandise appears. With a share of the sold merchandise donated, it serves in assisting non-profit military organisations supporting active members as well as veterans (‘salute’ – NFL, online). In other words, patriotism strongly appears in this sport in America. Thus, it must be examined whether the situation in Austria is similar to the one in the US.

According to statistics provided by the University of Chicago, Austria is a ‘proud’ nation, and not only in sports. US scientists have measured the national pride of people in 33 countries: the USA is ahead, behind – except for Austria. The question of patriotism in various countries was posed by a team led by Tom Smith from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago (Smith & Kim, 2006). The authors described national pride as the object of the study as the positive feeling towards one's own country that emerges from national identity. National pride is related to feelings of patriotism and nationalism, but they go much further.

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Among the 33 countries covered by the study, there are two that share the top: Venezuela leads when it comes to general national pride. The USA, on the other hand, is particularly proud of the country's special achievements. National identity is the binding force that holds the nation states together. These countries have formed their national identity through conflicts that people have welded together. In both cases, the Austrians are in fourth place. Only beaten by the Australians, who are apparently even more proud of their homeland. The scientists interviewed the respective population in two question blocks. In the first part, the interviewees were asked to indicate to what extent they agree with statements. The second part dealt with specific achievements of the country in the fields of science and technology, art, sport and political power. Venezuela leads the ranking for the greatest general national pride with 18.4 out of 25 possible points. Next are the USA (17.7), Australia (17.5) and Austria (17.5). South Africa, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and Israel are also among the top ten. (Smith & Kim, 2006)

In terms of pride in specific achievements, the USA (4) Venezuela (3.6) took first place, followed by Australia (2.9). South Africa (2.7) and Chile (2.6) are ahead of Austria (2.4), which comes in sixth. The last in the ranking were predominantly of European origin: the eastern part of Germany was surveyed separately and forms the taillight. Latvia, , Slovakia, Poland, Western Germany, Taiwan, , and the were just ahead. Even the French, to whom the cliché of exaggerated national pride clings, are behind the Austrians. The comparative data from ten years ago show, however, that the national pride of the Austrians is also diminishing. After all, in 1995 they were still in first place among the generally proud nations (Smith & Kim, 2006).

In general, young people were less patriotic, as researchers report. The same would apply to minorities and people with higher education. Researchers examined changes in national pride over a decade from 1995 to 2004, while attempting to assess the impact of globalization on this feeling. They found that national pride is growing especially in countries that had experienced terrorist attacks. According to Smith, events of this kind usually increase national solidarity, as is the case in the US or Australia (ORF, online).

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2.4.Leagues, Clubs and Seasons

In the Austrian football League, there are five divisions with varying teams. Excluding the AFL, which is the league’s highest ranking, all other divisions are divided into two conferences: Conference A and Conference B. The main reason for the conference system is the ease of organizing games, since the teams in each are assigned to the conferences with regard to the geographic proximity to other teams in the same division. For example, the Styrian Reavers were assigned to the Conference B, since they are situated in the south of Austria. Other teams of the Conference B are from the “eastern half” of Austria, to be precise Upper Austria, Lower Austria and Vienna. In order to partake in the AFL, a newly established football club must firstly be registered in the AFBÖ and secondly provide sufficient players, a stadium or other venue and sufficient space for the guest team and the audience.

Especially in lower divisions, the game day management is object to the host team members, as well as their friends and relatives, since American football in Austria is classified as an amateur sport and therefore receives no financial support from any institutions. In general, in order to raise sufficient funds, football teams establish membership programs to cover the expenses for bus travels or field equipment.

Furthermore, football clubs rely on the cooperation with sponsors in order to maintain a sufficient monetary source. The lion’s share of football clubs in Austria are therefore mostly sponsored by local businesses. However, international businesses such as Dacia or Swarovski are high profile sponsors of two AFL clubs in Austria. At this point in time, it seems as if football is inching away from the amateur mentality, towards a state of semi-professionalism regarding the monetary aspect of American football.

In the highest-ranking Austrian football league, larger amounts of money are necessary, not only because of lease expenses for larger stadiums due to a greater fan community, but because of the utilization of US-imported football players. Since the competition is immense in the league, most AFL teams rely on two to three US American players to support their roster. American football player imports are considered as highly valuable, since said players received football education at a very young age and from expert coaches. In key positions, such as quarterback or defensive back, they are able to support the existing roster with their expertise and skill and are able to deliver stability to a struggling offense or defense.

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The game mode in the AFL is similar if not identical to the NFL game mode, only applied on a smaller scale. The teams of the aforementioned conferences of the respective divisions play against one another, in a way that every team faces every other team at least once. In certain cases, teams must play against one another more than once, on the one hand due to game plan decisions of the AFBÖ, on the other hand due to the number of teams in the conference forcing some teams to compete against each other more than once. If a team has performed well enough in the regular season, they are qualified to participate in the playoffs, where the first and second ranking teams of one conference play against the first and second ranking of the other. The succeeding two teams are then qualified to participate in the finale. The winning team becoming the divisional champion is then entitled to move up into the next higher division.

2.5.Demographics of the Austrian Football League

While football in Austria is arguably a young and new phenomenon, the rosters of the football teams show a rather diverse demographic blend. The roster of the Styrian Reavers Football Club serves as a representative example of the Austrian Football League, since the majority of Austrian football clubs shares the same circumstances i.e., they are smaller clubs, relatively unknown and are not situated in a major Austrian city.

The majority of this football club is Caucasian, with only 3.5% of the players being people of color. This might be explained with a possible connection between newly established teams, which are comparably unknown and the hometown where the team is located. Tillmitsch, a municipality of the of Leibnitz totals a population of 3.284. According to the Land Steiermark (Datenkatalog Steiermärkische Landesregierung, online), 3.085 inhabitants are native Austrians, the other 199 are comprised of other, foreign nationalities.

Although American football is considered to be one of the roughest types of sport there is, a fair amount of football players have exceeded the age which would already be considered as too old for U.S. American standards. The player’s age ranges from 18 to 42, but the average age of the Reavers’ roster is 23. One of the major reasons for older football players to still participate actively is that the impact level of bodily force is smaller than in higher ranking leagues. Furthermore, the threshold to join a football club is lower, the lower the division is,

11 since the competition and therefore the need for a constantly high and powerfully maintained skill level is not as crucial as in e.g. the AFL. Valentin Schulz, former Defensive Back of the Dacia Vienna Vikings, stated in an interview that the level of football played in the U.S. is non- existent in Austria and that the desire to play football as a 40 year old would not be a difficulty, given a certain fitness at that age (Schauer-Bieche 2020, online).

The social background of the football players is generally diverse. Unlike the NFL, one of the most prestigious and representative American football leagues on the globe, football players in Austria are not paid in order play for a team. A professional career in the NFL is generally based on college or university, depending how well the teams are. Playing for a Division I NCAA football team greatly increases chances for being drafted by an NFL team. However, although Austria does indeed have university teams (situated in Vienna), the sport remains entirely without pay. Since there are no requirements to play football and it is not a professional sport, football players in Austria have highly different backgrounds.

2.6.The Rise of a Foreign Sport

The great popularity has to do among other things with the fact that the sport offers something for everyone. Athletic players, sporadic conflicts, boiling emotions, entertaining spectacles – just think of the halftime break of the Super Bowl – and a billion-dollar Fantasy Football industry comparable to our manager games. This is reflected in the importance of football in American schools and universities. Many high schools have their own teams and for American universities a college football team is almost obligatory. Some university teams have contracts with sporting goods manufacturers in the hundreds of millions.

More and more Europeans are getting enthusiastic about American football. Germany is at the forefront. The sport has been played here since 1945. Until 1979, however, it was mainly American occupation soldiers who ensured that American Football was present in Germany. In the 1980s, however, the American Football Association Germany (AFVD) was founded. Almost half of all football players in Europe are now members of the AFVD. The number of club members almost doubled between 2007 and 2017.

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About one million Germans follow the final phase of the American football season. At the biggest event of the season – the Super Bowl – the number of viewers on German TV is as high as two million. If one considers that the event is broadcast live around two o'clock in the morning, this number is remarkable. In addition, American football has become one of the most popular sports for which Germans bet with bookmakers to make the matches even more exciting.

The most popular is betting on the favourite players in the NFL, as German players are also involved. This season, two German players are active in the NFL season, Mark Nzeocha, at the San Francisco 49ers and Equanimeous St. Brown, at the Green Bay Packers. Nzeocha has appeared in 17 games. Brown, on the other hand, is a newcomer to the league and was selected in the draft in the sixth round by the Green Bay Packers.

But while behind the scenes of American football in the United States is a billion-dollar industry, Europeans play it more as a hobby. Therefore it is all the more impressive that, as already mentioned, some German players have made the leap into the American NFL.

Among the best-known names are Sebastian Vollmer, Björn Werner, Markus Kuhn and Kasim Edebali. Björn Werner played for the from 2013 to 2015. But in 2017 Werner retired from professional sport, because his knee could no longer cope with the strong physical demands of the sport. Sebastian Vollmer was active for the from 2009 to 2016. During this time, he celebrated numerous successes with the Patriots: 2 Super Bowl victories (XLIX, LI), 3 AFC Championship victories (2011, 2014, 2016) and an AFVD Player of the Year Award (2009) (see Wikipedia, online).

Markus Kuhn was under contract to the New York Giants from 2012 to 2015. One of his unforgettable successes was the first touchdown of a German player in the NFL. The German linebacker Kasim Edebali was on the pitch for the first time in 2014 for the . Since 2018, however, the 29-year-old has been under contract to the . The increasing success of German players in the USA's most successful league naturally has a positive effect on the ever-increasing popularity of the sport on this side of the Atlantic, but it is not the only reason why more and more people are watching the sport on their screens.

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Unlike soccer, there are no draws and no uninspired ball shots, because every move is important, and all possibilities are open until the last play. American football has not yet driven traditional football from its top position, but the rise of the sport on the German popularity scale is still remarkable.

But meanwhile more and more Europeans are getting enthusiastic about American football. Germany is at the forefront. The sport has been played here since 1945. Until 1979, however, it was mainly American occupation soldiers who ensured that American football was present in Germany. In the 1980s, however, the American football Association Germany (AFVD) was founded. Almost half of all football players in Europe are now members of the AFVD. The number of club members almost doubled between 2007 and 2017. About one million Germans follow the final phase of the American football season. At the biggest event of the season – the Super Bowl – the number of viewers on German TV is as high as two million. If one considers the fact that the event is broadcasted live around two o'clock in the morning, this number is truly remarkable. In addition, American football has become one of the most popular sports for which Germans bet with bookmakers to make the matches even (Sudar 2018, online).

3. An Introduction to Representation

American football is a rather recent phenomenon in the Austrian sphere of sports and the growing broadcasting and team numbers are evident for the expanding popularity among Austrians. Furthermore, American football in Austria receives international recognition as well: Roger Kelly – Managing Editor & Partner at American Football International and former PR Director of the B.C. Lions in the CFL – is quoted in an interview on espn.com, stating that “The highest-level international football outside of America or Canada is played in Germany and Austria” (Seifert 2016, online).

While football is arguably the sport that receives the most recognition as the one true all- American sport, these internalised cultural values and concepts of ‘americanness’ of football also have an impact on Austrian culture: the American cultural phenomenon of the Super Bowl- party, where NFL fans gather at a certain place, for example a bar or private home in order to

14 watch the Super Bowl is already an integral part of the Austrian football scene. 67 venues in nine Austrian federal states hosted official Super Bowl parties.

When one perceives the term ‘football’ through any visual or acoustic way, a certain image or idea comes to mind. The way how people interpret or understand football individually is unique; no person would have the exact same imagination about football in their mind, yet people are able to understand what football is, talk and write about it. For instance, the coach of a college football team would have a rather specific and differentiated idea of football than a high school teacher.

However, both of them would be able to recognize what a football is, and their mental concept of the game would be correspondent at least in some aspects, such as people competing in a game against each other, strong bodily contact and a certain framework of rules. In order to write about the ways how American football is represented in Austria, it must be clarified what representation means.

The relation between 'things', concepts and signs lies at the heart of the production of meaning in language. The process which links these three elements together is what we call 'representation'. (Stuart Hall 1997: 19)

To analyze concept of representation is essential for all academic fields which relate to cultural objects such as art, literature, film or sports. It is necessary to address the function of representation, because these objects reflect culture and society. Speaking of sport such as football as a cultural object is of course not limited to the dimension of material objects alone. The representation of American football in Austria rather revolves around what football means to Austrians and what they associate with it.

In short, culture is created by connecting language and meaning through representation (Hall 1997: 15). The Cambridge English Dictionary offers two relevant descriptions for “representation”:

1 the way that someone or something is shown or described: He gave a talk on the representation of women in 19th-century art.

2 a sign, picture, model, etc. of something: This statue is a representation of Hercules. (Cambridge dictionary, online) 15

Considering these definitions, the content uttered stands for and simultaneously stands in place of women shown in art in the 1800s. In an equal manner, the statue itself is a piece of rock like marble, which has been modelled by an artist to resemble a humanlike object; in the context of Greek mythology however, it symbolizes the son of Zeus, who is renowned for his sheer strength and countless endeavors and adventures. This definition of representation demonstrates that concepts can be put into pictures and words. Marcel Danesi describes representation as the “knowledge-making activity” accompanying the brain’s ability to understand and produce signs. He further explains that representation may be defined as the use of signs to relate, depict or reproduce something that is perceived, felt or imagined in any kind of physical form (Danesi 2004, 16).

As Stuart Hall claims, there are two processes or systems involved, that enable representation to work properly. He describes the first system as the one that by which people, events and objects correlate with certain concepts in our mind. This system is used to meaningfully interpret the environment. In this sense, mental images and concepts represent the environment of people, clearing the way to meaningfully interpret and refer to concrete and abstract ‘things’, whether they be in the real world or inside one’s imagination (Hall 1997: 23).

The concept of a mug serves as a fitting example here. A mug is stored in the mind as a certain concept: A cylindrical container attached with a handle, which is typically used to consume hot or warm liquids. Furthermore, every mental concept is as unique as a person is. Person A’s concept of a mug might be a large brown one, made of clay, whereas Person B’s is a rather tiny one made of china.

In addition, this system enables conceptualising far more complex things, one has never seen yet or those of pure fiction, non-existent in this world. War, god or love can be understood without having it ever witnessed, as well as entirely made-up objects such as fairies, demons or heaven. The reason this is possible is because this system of representation arranges and classifies concepts, while creating complex connections between them. There are countless ways in which these concepts correlate, the simplest one probably being the principles of difference or similarity.

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A plastic bottle and a fisher boat can both float, yet the one is a container used to store liquids and the other a nautical vessel designed for humans who go fishing. The point is that these are not just random concepts, but organized and categorized ones, which share complex relations with one another (Hall 1997: 17-18). As already discussed, concepts and signs are coequally necessary to produce meaning. It is therefore crucial to elaborate the sphere of semiotics, the studies of signs in order to clarify and refer to certain terms.

3.1.Semiotics

Figure 1: Basic Sign Theory. (Danesi 2004: 2)..

Signs are objects in any given form, which convey a certain meaning of something. Signs can appear in various shapes and places. They are coded and decoded in order to be understood. The meaning of colors serves as an example here. Consider the meaning of red. At a basic level of understanding, red is one of the primary colors according to color theory. However, red can convey several meanings, in a traffic light, for instance.

While the red light itself is just an illuminating device in a certain color, the specific appearance of it – namely on a traffic light – gives meaning to it: the majority of the globe understands this as a meaning for stopping. In other instances, the color red might appear as a warning signal, 17 such as a red flag on the beach signifying dangerous waters or as a meaning for exclusiveness and social status as in the famous red carpet.

To provide a simpler example at a basic level, red demonstrates the working mechanism of a sign. It is a color that stands for something else. To visualize it as a formula for how signs work:

X (a color) = Y (stop, danger, etc.)

Describing these X = Y relations is the fundamental subject of semiotics. It is characteristic for humans, to portray and interpret the world in this manner. Signs can include anything from colors, sounds, gestures, facial expression etc. Marcel Danes states that this is the reason, why humans became regulated by history instead of natural selection, because the accrued pools of meanings of past generations have been stored and forwarded in the form of signs. Therefore, culture is in all aspects meaningful as in being full of meaning, the result of an inherent need to find and give meaning to existence (Danesi 2004: 4).

3.2.Language

Language consists of a system incorporating signs that express ideas. Therefore, it is comparable to writing, symbolic rites, formulas of politeness, military signals or the deaf-mute alphabet (Danesi 2004: 8). Language is more than just a means of communication. Language shapes our thinking, our culture and our identity. A foreign language can also influence our identity. People use language every day by talking to others, reading or writing. And yet language is more than just a means of communication: foreign languages also make us who we are or how we appear to others. Whether a foreign language, technical jargon, dialect or youth slang – words help us to slip into verbal roles. What and how we are is largely determined by how we express ourselves with words.

When learning a new language, one is always forced to solve new problems, for example by learning, perceiving or abstracting new terms. Learning a new language means expanding one's ability to express oneself, sometimes changing facial expressions, vocal pitch and body language. Often, one can discover differences in the use of language that one has never thought about before. Beyond language, the way of thinking and the identity of the other often changes. 18

Learning a second language means building on existing linguistic and cultural knowledge. Each language has a specific representation. French, for example, is considered to be a particularly beautiful and sonorous language, but also a difficult one. The difference between spoken and written language makes it difficult for many learners. Swedish or Spanish is considered to be grammatically and lexically simpler languages and can therefore be learned more quickly and easily by many.

Change in systems and revolutions lead to a change of language and construct a new identity. Identity formation with and through languages also depends on the social conditions of communication. Learning a foreign language can only be successful if it is authentic and appeals to the learner. A language is only appealing if the learner can make a reference for himself or the language inspires him, for example because of its language melody. The basic prerequisite for learning a language is regular use by a community. For example, it is of little use if German is more widely spoken in the EU but is only used by German speakers, or if Catalan is the official language but is not spoken outside Spain.

Language is truly a remarkable phenomenon. Without it, human life as we know it would be inconceivable. The endless sea of written words contained in books, which have recorded human thoughts throughout the ages, and to which we can have access if we know the appropriate verbal codes, constitute a truly astounding achievement. f somehow all the books contained by the world’s libraries were to be destroyed overnight, human civilization would have to start all over re-coding knowledge linguistically, by bringing together writers, scientists, educators, lawmakers, etc. to literally “rewrite” knowledge.

4. Approaching Media Analysis – Fundamental Aspects of Selected Media

Since football is an American sport that continually seeps into the Austrian sports sphere, it is crucial to examine how a foreign sport is represented in selected Austrian media. To analyze the representation of football in Austrian media, an exemplary choice of media has been made. There is plentiful supply of media outlets, including several official as well as fan profiles of social media channels. Therefore, an analysis of selected content regarding the representation of football in certain Austrian media outlets will be conducted.

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This content includes a television commercial of the Austrian private TV channel PULS 4, the content of an Instagram post of an AFL Division 4 team, as well as an online article of the newspaper Kleine Zeitung. Before the actual analysis can be conducted, it is essential to provide a brief overview of the key features of the media in discussion. While television closely follows the institutional and technical structure of the already successfully established radio, the addition of the visual aspect changes the communicative structure and also the cultural consequences of the medium in a far-reaching way. At the same time, television – despite the strong attribution of identity as an exemplary mass medium – is subject to constant changes in the second half of the 20th century due to new formats, new institutions and new technologies, such as video and DVD. Television can therefore be determined less by central features than by a series of media dynamics that contribute in ever new ways to the temporal and spatial restructuring of society and the re-organisation of knowledge production and cultural circulation (Schröter 2014: 307-308).

Social media, or Web 2.0 is the term mostly used to describe the participatory offer formats on the Internet. These include individual formats operated by one person or a small group (blogs and podcasts) and collective formats open to participants, such as social network sites (Facebook, StudiVZ etc.), video and photo offerings (video portal, YouTube, Flickr etc.) or advisory and knowledge offerings (Dooyoo, Wikipedia, Wikis etc.). These formats are often called social media or social web. The term Web 2.0 comes from Tim O'Reilly, who uses the term introduced in 2004 in a broader sense. In his programmatic text "What Is Web 2.0" he reflects on social, technical, economic and legal aspects of the internet. The bursting of the dotcom bubble in the the year 2001 marks a sharp break for him: in the 1990s (Web 1.0), it was assumed that the rules of the mass media and -markets are transferable to the internet. In Web 2.0 its independent potential is first revealed (Bertele et al. 2013: 368).

Although the newspaper article, later discussed in this paper, was also published online, it is necessary to give a short overview of the media analysis for newspapers, namely journalism. Journalism, the term for products of public communication (information, comments, opinions) that are conveyed by the media. Normatively, this is usually associated with a political or otherwise socially relevant and current interest (journalistic action). Journalistic means (media) are subject to social as well as technological and thus functional change and require adjustments

20 on both the producer and consumer side (for example, in usage habits; variations in form, presentation and style typical of an epoch) (Bertele et al. 2013: 285).

5. PULS 4 Football Programme Commercial

Figure 2: Puls 4 commercial for the 2015 NFL season highlighting the dynamics of the violence of the sport.

As already mentioned above, American football is becoming increasingly broadcasted on German-speaking television. Most recently, the Austrian public service broadcaster ORF started to include AFL live games in their program. To be precise, the sport channel of the ORF, ORF Sport +, televises one game of the AFL’s weekly game schedule live on Austrian TV.

Before ORF, PULS 4, a privately owned television channel, was the first Austrian TV channel to broadcast football games. PULS 4 was the first to broadcast NFL Games. The channel started to televise the NFL conference finals as well as the Super Bowl XLIV in the year 2010, as part of their newly acquired sport package established by the company which owns PULS 4, the ProSiebenSat.1 Austria group. The last Super Bowl generated 84.000 viewers at peak times.

Since PULS 4 launched its weekly broadcasting of the NFL season, the channel advertised its new program with various TV commercials, in order to generate interest for what could be 21 considered a fringe sport in Austria. Interestingly, these commercials featured distinct features of football, utilized to trigger a certain image of the sport. In order to illustrate the representational aspects of TV commercials about American football, the advertisement of PULS 4 (see YouTube, online) shall further be interpreted according to its themes, signifying practices, and representation of the sport.

5.1.Sensationalist Physicality

The spot begins with two men waiting for an elevator in a building, which resembles the hallway of an office. Person A is dressed in rather casual clothes, such as an open shirt, jeans and a backpack. Person B is dressed in a suit and tie, carrying a leather bag and signalling through his body language to be rather annoyed and stern. Person A approaches Person B with a laid- back, positive attitude, telling his co-worker to relax, because apparently both are about to head out of the building and into the weekend.

It seems that the two men work in the same office, since one responds to the other by reminding his co-worker, that he bear in mind that there is a meeting on Monday. As soon as the elevator arrives, the man in the suit gets tackled by what appears to be a football player and one hears an off-screen voice of a man saying “Bevor der Montag kommt, kommt die NFL” which would translate into “the NFL comes first before monday”.

Person A shrugs and enters the elevator in which Michael Eschlböck and Walter Reiterer are already waiting. They are both dressed in black suits and wear dark sunglasses, carrying what appear to be replicates of the Academy Award. As the elevator door closes, the off-voice returns saying “Die neue Saison beginnt jetzt, immer Sonntags, PULS 4” which translates into “The new season begins now, Sundays, PULS 4”. The spot end as the NFL logo fades into the center of the screen, accompanied by the date of the start of the NFL regular season.

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5.2.The Male Body as a Tool

At first glance, the spot might appear as a comedic advertisement to promote watching the NFL on the weekend. However, the commercial conveys hidden meanings, it utilizes certain specific traits of football which in turn produce a generalized image of the sport. This poses the question how football is perceived in Austria and how it is represented. Therefore, the following chapter will be dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of the advertisement.

The most iconic sequence of the spot is most likely the man in the suit being tackled by the football player. Tackling is an essential move in football; according to the official NFL rulebook, “Tackling is an attempt by a defensive player to hold a runner to halt his advance or bring him to the ground” (see Official Play Rules of the NFL).

It is predominantly the defense which executes tackles against ball carriers of the offense such as the running back or wide receiver, in order to hinder them from gaining yards or to dispossess the player from the ball. In the event of an and the resulting change of ball possession, offensive players may also need to tackle another defensive player.

Tackling is, as the most acts on the football field are, bound to a certain set of rules in order to maintain a certain level of safety during a football game. However, tackling involves at least two players making severe physical contact and therefore bears a great risk of injury. A fundamental trait of the football ethos is probability of being exposed to physical pain.

Coaches and teammates indoctrinate themselves and their peers with the ideology of being “tough guys”, who not only are required to endure pain, but also to inflict it, up to the point where one receives praise for a hitting an opponent particularly hard. This goes so far, that players are rewarded for the use of violence by the public, players or coaches, even if the player might receive a penalty by the referee (MacKinnon 2003: 109).

Just as cricket personified the qualities of the British empire, American football has replaced as the national game. It symbolizes a tough, aggressive, even sometimes brutal, competitive, and commercial American masculine character in its quest to achieve a global hegemony. (Gerald Gems 2006: 156)

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Violence in sports certainly is not a new phenomenon, but it is arguably a highly romanticized aspect of American football. One has the possibility to view numerous highlight compilations of the biggest hits of football on youtube.com, already indicating a sensationalist aspect to the violent side of football. What is even more interesting is the fact that the level of physical violence occurring in football is legitimate within the boundaries and legal framework of a football game but would have severe legal consequences outside the world of sport.

American football can be considered as a male-dominated sport and that relentlessness and aggression are traits connected with it. In 2017, Gallup, a global analytics and advice firm, published a survey investigating the viewer behavior of professional sports in the U.S., revealing that 62% of all males interviewed watch professional football (Jones 2017, online). Kenneth MacKinnon names aggression and violence in sport as a central aspect of the masculine mystique. Transforming the body into a weapon in order to dominate other players can be observed routinely. However, MacKinnon states that it is difficult to reach a clear definition of what violence is in sport, because it is problematic to determine whether certain actions are excessive or necessary due to the competitiveness of the sport (MacKinnon 2003: 109).

A certain degree of violence is legitimately embedded in and therefore characteristic of American football, but violence simultaneously serves as a sensationalist feature of football as well. To quote Richard C. Crepeau from his study NFL Football A History of America’s New National Pastime: “Professional football is a game of beauty and violence played by highly talented athletes who provide the public with an extremely popular form of entertainment.” (Crepeau 2014: page x, introduction).

It is no secret that the U.S. media discovered that the level of physicality of the sport is attractive for the audience and soon understood to use imagery of aggression and violence in order to attract viewers and readers. It is crucial to mention that the NFL has been and is constantly altering its rules, especially regarding bodily safety of its players. However, there is a certain struggle between penalizing unnecessary roughness or excessively hard hits and maintaining a certain degree of violence, because the NFL board knows, that is one of the key aspects that the audience wants to witness.

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For several years the NFL had moved slowly to alter its presentation of violence. NFL Films moved away from the bone-crunching hits, at least the illegal ones, in its highlight presentations. Promotional material from the league and the networks stressing violent collisions was toned down. This was a delicate process because it was clear that violence was a major attraction of the game. (Crepeau, 2014: 186)

Apparently, this notion of legitimate aggression in a sport is what many people associate with American football. PULS 4 could have decided to include different, but also characteristic features of football in order to represent the sport in their advertisement. For instance, American football relies heavily on strategic planning. Coaches are required to select the optimum formation, protection and pass/run routes against the defense, which must decide whether to protect zones against passes or play the man coverage in order to sabotage the running game. To an individual, which is not familiar with the sport, it may indeed seem like an unorganized colliding of bodies. It is however comparable to a violent game of chess, where strategy and brute force are coequally necessary.

As Michael Miller (1997: 102) puts it: “The game, for all its emphasis on physicality and brute strength, also involves an intellectual warfare between the opposing coaching staffs, who have studied in depth each other’s past games […]” (Miller 1997: 102) In order to advertise their NFL program, PULS 4 decided to display the violent side of the sport, instead of showing a person throwing or catching a pass, which is equally characteristic of football. What is even more interesting is the fact that the TV channel did not include the one thing that is literally the name and synonym of the sport – the football itself.

5.3.Breaking the Old, Establishing the New

As mentioned above, the two men seem to be co-workers or colleagues of some kind. The main features which distinguish them are their body language and their clothing. The difference between the two men are part of what constitute the message of the advertisement, namely the appearance of something new and breaking old traditions. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate and analyze said differences.

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Since clothes are worn on bodies, and in light of the fact that bodies are signs of selfhood, they can be characterized as signs expanding the significance of bodies in the context of culture. Bodies and clothes covering them are in this way pervaded with aesthetic and social significance.

From a biological perspective, garments serve an essential purpose, because they increase the survivability of humans extensively. They are, at this denotative dimension, human made expansions of the body's defensive assets; they are enhancements of the human protective hair and skin. However, as it is more often than not the case with human systems, garments constantly take on an entire scope of undertones in social settings. These are set up based on the different clothing standards that advise individuals how to dress themselves in social circumstances (Danesi 2004: 180).

In the methodology of semiotics, words and pictures can work as signifiers in the process of constructing meaning, but so do objects. Although clothes have the basic physical capacity to cover the body and shield it from the climate, they serve as signs as well. Not only do they construct meaning, they additionally convey a message. An evening robe may imply tastefulness; jeans and sneakers casualness or comfortability. These signs provide clothes with the ability to create meaning and to perform like a language – the “language of fashion” (Hall 1997: 37).

In this sense, clothes transport meaning that is necessary to understand the implied message of the advertisement. Firstly, the man in the suit shall receive closer inspection. A suit is commonly associated with formality, social status and conservativeness. The man wearing a suit functions as a prime example of power dressing. Power dressing, the wearing of costly business dress to show status, became a fashionable practice among white collar working people, which originated in the U.S. and Great Britain during the 1980s. During this era, there were copious opportunities for employment, as businesses were flourishing, power dressing empowered individuals to create and display a sense and image of success. The one crucial piece of clothing was a custom fitted, tailored suit, or power suit, accompanied by a variety of costly accessories (Pendergast & Pendergast 2004: 972).

To depict conservative norms, formal attire is regularly worn. Wearing formal attire is related with perceptions of showing professionality, but simultaneously with being more distanced and

26 less approachable. Formal apparel is often identified with demonstrating psychological formality displaying social distance, while on the contrary, informal or casual clothing is identified with closeness and familiarity. Individuals who wear formal attire describe themselves as superiorly skilled and more rational. Additionally, is related with increased social distance (Kodzoman 2019: 4).

It must be noted that these concepts associated with clothing are applicable to western societies. Concepts, as mentioned above, are subjective as the signifiers – objects, such as in this case clothes – are given meaning by humans and society greatly influences the way humans identify and interpret them.

Certainly, the man in the suit conveys various meanings, but in this special setting, he shows significant concepts giving meaning to the advertisement. The suit is a sign of social status and of formal work. The suit might also serve as a symbol for old and formal tradition, where work is the most important aspect in the life of an Austrian. This image is further enforced by the lines the actor utters in the scene. He responds to his co-worker, reminding him of work, namely in the way of telling him that there is a meeting on Monday. Along with the suit, the man displays the image of a stereotypical workaholic. He seems to be distant in his behavior and it can be assumed, that the two men in the scene are not in a friendly relationship, which serves as a metaphor of a common negative association with work among many people. The man wearing a suit might even be regarded as a personification of work or old traditions itself.

5.4.The Message

In a broader sense, the tackle performed by the football player serves as a reminder of the football games on weekends. Football literally tackles work. The advertisement shows the viewer, that football comes first before the work week on Monday starts and that football deserves a priority over other things. It appears that the man only gets tackled, because he shows no interest in football, but rather only in work. Therefore, he is denied access to the elevator, he is excluded from this special society.

The man in casual clothes is allowed to enter, but without ever uttering that he is in any way a football fan. As mentioned earlier, the company in the elevator consists of Michael Eschlböck,

27 who is the president of the AFBÖ and Walter Reiterer, a journalist and sport commentator on PULS 4. The two men are established figures of the football scene in Austria. They are hosting and moderating the NFL broadcasts on PULS 4. In this sense, they are iconic signs of American football in Austrian TV, because that is the frame in which they appear regularly. Their only purpose in this scene is signifying that they have a relationship with the sport in any given way. To the uninitiated, they would seem like two regular men in black suits and sunglasses.

At first sight, the man in average, casual clothing symbolizes that football is supposedly a sport for everyone to watch. The lack of special clothing or other specific giveaways about what the average football fan should or must look like indicates an inclusive message about football culture in Austria. The man wears no fan shirt or other merchandise that would clearly identify him as a fan of football. However, the spot clearly indicates that football is a male dominated sport. Only males can be seen the entire time. Furthermore, the voice from the off-screen is a deep male one. Having a look at the average football viewer clarifies why.

As already discussed, males are more likely to watch American football, but statistics show why the man in the spot has this specific look. A survey conducted by Globalwebindex gives insight into the demographics and behavior of NFL fans. The Globalwebindex audience report of 2015 revealed among males, the 25-34 year old are the leading age group regarding NFL viewer numbers. The 16-24 year olds are the least probable group to watch football on television, but the most likely to watch via internet platforms (see Globalwebindex 2015, online).

It is therefore unsurprising, that the man entering the elevator has the appearance of being somewhere between 20 – 35 years of age. The target audience is more likely to identify with him. Moreover, the advertisement toys with the fact that NFL football games are broadcasted late in the evening, due to the circumstance of the time zones of Austria. This suggests, that watching football is well worth the potential lack of sleep.

6. The Image in Social Media

No other medium is as influential for global networking as the internet. The internet also has a great influence on the content and form of communication in the cultural sector. This source of 28 information is penetrating ever deeper into the everyday lives of more and more people as a result of its increasing distribution, faster data transmission and changing user behavior.

Among the various forms of internet use, social networks are of great importance because they combine different media formats (e-mail, short messages, chat, video, images). They serve both direct private and professional communication and the dissemination of informative and entertaining content. The different intensities of communication range from private one-to-one contact to exchange in fixed groups and communication with all users of a network. It is not the individual user who forms the basis, but the network, which is condensed internally and expanded externally.

The Super Bowl is a major sporting and media event that now attracts more than just sports fans. It is staged in the media, like massive parties and shows and therefore lure more and more people in front of the TV or a livestream on the PC or mobile device. The role of the media is self-explanatory: sports should be given as much public attention as possible. Special emphasis must be put on the (self-) representation of football in social media, since it is one of the prime broadcasting examples for football in Austria. Besides TV broadcasting of NFL and AFL football games, social networks such as Facebook are frequently used to stream live games in lower divisions such as the Division 4.

Traditional images of masculinity can be found to a large extent in sport. Especially in competitive sports, traditional images of masculinity are reproduced. Since competitive sport is an essential pillar of western sporting culture, it seems natural for many boys and men to behave traditionally male in sport: hard, courageous, assertive, mentally and physically strong and absolutely willing to win.

Physical use of force, dominantly aggressive behavior in sports games, toughness and assertiveness and, last but not least, the unconditional will to succeed are part of the common behavioral repertoire of many boys. They put themselves under pressure to assert themselves in the same group and to demonstrate that they are superior and more powerful than girls.

In addition to traditional male attributes, another characteristic of hegemonic masculinity becomes apparent: the pursuit of dominance. Sport is a good match for this striving in that it defines who the winner is and who the loser, by means of fixed rules. Through these competitive 29 arguments, superiority over women, as well as same sex 'opponents', is much easier to demonstrate than in 'normal' life. Boys must face this hegemonic orientation of masculinity based on confrontation and victory in order to position themselves and be accepted in their peer group:

"The myth of male superiority leads boys to repress and reevaluate all experiences that make them doubt their basic superiority. If a victory is a criterion for masculinity, then a personal defeat shows one's own "unmanliness" (Blomberg 2015: 203).

In order not to drown in this relentless competition for masculinity, the boys begin to instrumentalize their bodies. If 'to be male' means to be sporty, a sporty body is also needed to demonstrate masculinity. The traditional sport thus already seems to set the motto for dealing with one's own body: "The function of the body is not to express itself through it, but to train it in such a way that it is optimally resilient for sporting purposes" (Blomberg 2015).

6.1.Self-Representation in a Masculine Sport

Figure 3: Facebook posting of the Huskies Wels, emphasizing the sense of hard-boiled masculinity connected to football 30

The Huskies Wels is an American football club originating from Upper Austria in the north of Austria. The club is currently playing in the Conference A in the Division 4 of the Austrian Football League. 2019 is their first regular season in the history of the club. Despite being a rather young team in terms of existence, the team was founded in 2017 – the Huskies Wels managed to acquire a roster, which is big enough in terms of figures, to successfully compete in a season. Which is especially remarkable when one considers the fact that a football team consists of offense, defense and special team and that each one of these units needs separate theoretical and practical training.

The main media outlet of the Huskies Wels besides their own homepage, is their Facebook page. Football Austria, which titles itself Austria’s football magazine, provides a social media ranking of all official and active football clubs participating in the AFL divisions. This ranking counts clubs’ official Facebook page likes, Twitter and Instagram follows and then calculates a total which results in the respective rank. With 1.586 likes as of May 13, 2020, Facebook is undoubtedly their channel with the most potent reach (see Football Austria, online).

Therefore, a Facebook post of the Huskies Wels will serve as an exemplary image of how the football club represents itself and American football in Austria. Body language, co-text and setup of the post are what constitute a message or image of the football club in they want to be perceived by the outside world.

Sports teams use social media channels in order to display and advertise themselves in a certain manner. NFL and AFL football clubs advertise themselves via posts, videos and images. Producers of such media have the power to convey the meaning they desire. They encode a message which is then decoded by the recipient audience. Therefore, a code is understood as a type of system in which the sign is organized in agreement with certain rules and the code governs the relation among the signs (Dorst 2006, online).

According to Hall (2009: 36-38) there are three different readings of the recipients on the decoding side (i.e. on the audience side):

1. The dominant hegemonic position – the receiver operates within the dominant code.

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2. The negotiated code – contains a blend of adaptive and oppositional aspects.

3. The oppositional code – when the receiver understands the literal meaning but forms their own interpretation.

According to Hall, meaning is not imposed on the receiving end – the audience. Meaning is rather suggested. The audience is not in the same power position as creators of media, since their control over signification results on a heavy influence on decoding (Hall 2009: 36-38). It is essential to understand that Hall’s model serves here rather as an example to clarify how messages might be understood or decoded by the receiver than a frame in which an analysis will take place.

In this sense, language can always be interpreted differently, which does not mean that it is completely open to interpretation. Applied to the field of communication, this means that each component in the process of communication, "encoding" and "decoding", must be understood as articulation, as an autonomous event from which the next step cannot automatically be read. Firstly, the picture itself shall be described, followed by an analysis of the given imagery and the co-text involved in the post.

6.2.(Hyper) Masculinity

Regarding social media, the Huskies Wels are in the situation, in which they possess the power to present themselves in their desired way. They can decide what they intend to show to the recipients and in what way. As Hall suggests, operating in social media sets the power level on the encoding side, i.e. in this case the Huskies Wels. An analysis of what they decide to display on their post is therefore necessary in order to investigate the concepts that the Huskies want to show and represent.

In the photograph of the post, one can see several men in football jerseys and helmets, from the Huskies team, sporting a grey and black color code, as well as the opposing team in navy blue jerseys, which cannot further be disclosed. Note that a lens flare effect can be seen on the

32 photograph, entering from the top left corner, usually an effect which is meant to speak for the quality and nature of the light source (Barnett 2008: 39).

The main focus of the picture is centered on a player carrying a football. In the background, his teammates are following behind him. Upon closer inspection, it is apparent that the photograph shows a run play, where an eligible receiver e.g. a wide receiver or running back of the offense try to gain yardage downfield of the opponent’s half. This assumption may be strengthened by the use of the hashtag #runningback as part of the co-text of the picture. The post further comprises the title text “Power and speed with hands and feet”, a reference of the photographer, as well as the hashtags #americanfootball, #runningback, #huskies_wels #biteandfight, #onecityoneteam, and #riseasone.

It is possible to create unique hashtags in order to connect them with the content that one intends to spread on social media. The official Instagram Help Center internet site provides a helpful explanation of the function of a hashtag: “After you tag your post with a hashtag, you'll be able to tap the hashtag to see a page that shows all photos and videos people have uploaded with that hashtag.”1

The use of hashtags also functions in the same manner on Facebook or Twitter as well. On social media, it is a common practice to include hashtags in posts, either to amplify a picture or other post with certain wording or to perpetuate a hashtag in order increase its memorability. Although American football is doing well in shaking off its image as a fringe sport, smaller clubs or those who only recently joined the AFBÖ often need to gain publicity in order to attract an increasing number of fans and even more importantly, sponsors.

It can therefore be argued that the main focus understandably lies on the staging of the own team. Arguably the most striking and iconic image are the football players of the Huskies’ team, wearing their team’s uniform, helmet and shoulder pads. American football players, equipped with their immensely padded shoulders, seem menacing and overly masculinized, even on the sideline of the football field, when they are not actively participating in the game at a given moment of the game. The design of such shoulder pads is highly complex, since they should

1 The text is taken and translated from the official Instagram ‘Help’ section. https://help.instagram.com/351460621611097 33 provide maximum safety for the player, while also combining mobility and comfort (Morris 2008: 134).

Shoulder pad descriptions on the online store of Schutt, one of the leading American football equipment manufacturers operating in the U.S., offer shoulder pads such as:

The Pro Gear PL 15 has a FLAT pad design and are enhanced iwth(sic!) cool mesh liners and performance fit stitching. Just like the Alpha series, the PL pads and trim are fully customizable to match your team's colors. Every Pro Gear shoulder pad is designed with air management technology. The utilization of the air management cushioning system offers the very best in protective capability. (Information on a Schutt shoulder pad – Schutt Sports, online)

Desmond Morris suggests that there is more to shoulder pads than a purely protective purpose. He argues that this body armor of high-grade is often completely ignored by other football players. This results in him questioning the essentiality of shoulder pads for American football players, when other sports with a similar physical degree of contact such as Rugby or Australian Rules Football omit the necessity for physical protection in the form of helmets and shoulder pads. He suggests that the answer to the question why American football contains shoulder pads is, besides its obviously protective function, an accessory to display masculinity (Morris 2008: 134).

Indeed, sports sociologists suggest that sporting cultures are pervaded by hegemonic masculinity (Kalman-Lamb 2012, online) Oxford Reference provides a revealing reference about the characteristic traits hegemonic masculinity embodies:

The mythology of gender dominant within cultural representations of males, reflecting normative behavioural ideals for males in a culture in a particular period (regardless of the actual prevalence of such behaviour in that society). […] In contemporary Western cultures, masculinity is typically associated with personality traits such as independence and competitiveness, role behaviours such as being the primary provider and initiative-taking, and physical characteristics such as muscularity and a deep voice. (Oxford Reference, online)

Being proactive, competitive and muscular are all characteristic traits of how American football players are displayed in western media outlets. Football is a sport where dominating another

34 player or team is a focal point of a game. Gems (2006: 129) goes as far that he claims that: ”[…]communal team sports like rugby and American football allow males to assert their masculinity through demonstrations of physicality.”.

Establishing dominance over another individual by being stronger, faster or more dexterous is sought after by the majority of football players. Inflicting and receiving pain are a measure to achieve victory. Players are expected to potentially harm another player while at the same time enduring pain and injuries. Kalman claims that hegemonic masculinity in sports declares the male body as a tool to be used to inflict violence upon others and upon oneself while pain is rather to be understood as a distraction and shall thus be ignored (Kalman-Lamb 2012, online).

Indeed, there are numerous maneuvers that can and often must be carried out by football players that are potentially injurious, but legal. The Blindside is arguably one of the most notorious and iconic actions of violence in American football. This form of tackle or block involves two opposing players, where one of the players receives heavy impact at a 90° angle by another player, often resulting in injuries. Common injuries are fractures, concussions, dislocations, or torn ligaments such as the anterior cruciate ligament, known as the ACL (Olson et al. 2019: 290).

Despite the photograph being the most visually striking part of the Huskies’ Facebook post, the co-text in the form of hashtags and the title are what constitute a more profound layer of meaning. As mentioned above, language is a system of signs, which enables us to express ideas, and signs are objects in any given form, which convey a certain meaning of something. In a more linguistic approach, the photograph and the surrounding text must both be viewed as signs, whether they be iconic, or symbolic. Hence, the words involved in the post and the picture itself must be regarded as language, as text.

This perspective is crucial for analyzing the social media post as a whole, because the co-text of a certain sign – in this case the photograph – is the array of other words which find use in the same sentence (Yule 2010: 129). The co-text bears a strong influence on what the receiver or audience thinks the word means. To put it in simpler terms, the written language used in the post modifies the picture.

Besides the rhyming quality of “Power and speed with hands and feet!”, the title suggests fundamental traits necessary to succeed in a football game. As already discussed above, power 35 in the form of physical strength plays a crucial role in American football. However, this post displays the first sign of another physical skill not related to pure bodily force: speed.

Fast pace is one of the core mechanics of every run and pass play by the offense in football. running-, tail-, or fullbacks as well as wide receivers and tight ends are required to be agile and fast, especially in the NFL. Before a football player may be regarded as a choice to play for one of the 32 NFL franchises, he must first perform well in the annual NFL combine. The combine or scouting combine serves as an evaluation of potential NFL athletes, where they are required to pass several health tests, as well as sporting drills.

One of the most prestigious drills of the combine is the 40-yard dash, where athletes must run 40 yards as quickly as possible. According to NFL.com, the 40-yard dash is one of the most important aspects of the NFL combine: “The most high-profile of those tests is the 40-yard dash and players can literally make or break their status for the NFL Draft in the course of just over four seconds.” (see NFL scouting combine).

However, if a player does not manage to do well, this does not automatically mean that his chances of getting drafted are greatly decreased, since athletes which did not perform overall too well managed to have successful NFL careers (Park 2016: 13). It appears that the 40-yard dash is still one of the flagship abilities for determining an athlete’s potential. Furthermore, the combine is also broadcasted live on TV and via stream, meaning that in 2019, one could watch the combine for 4 days.

It appears that the mentioning of hands and feet fits the narrative of football being a body- centered sport. Possessing the ability to perform a difficult catch of a long-passed ball or outsmarting the opponent with a spin move to escape his grip need physical prerequisites. As mentioned above, the scouting combine can be seen as an evaluation of the mental and physical fitness of an athlete.

Additionally, the potential club candidates are measured as well. A measurement that might appear as unexpected is the one of the hands of the quarterback (see NFL Combine Schedule, online). Hence, it comes with no surprise that the Huskies include wording that involves physicality, since bodily superiority seems to be a prevalent trope in American football.

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The hashtags #wels, #onecityoneteam and #riseasone indicate a deep sense of attachment of the Huskies towards their home city. As a contrast to the statement that the PULS 4 commercial shows signs of breaking old traditions and establishing new ones, these hashtags indicate an image of a more conservative, traditional attachment to the city the Huskies play in. Furthermore, #riseasone serves as a clear marker for team spirit, solidarity and bonding which is common in team sports.

Although patriotism is not as much a characteristic of Austrian as it is of American culture, 36% of Austrians would describe themselves as undeniably patriotic. Furthermore, 41% of Austrians would describe themselves as rather patriotic, according to a survey conducted by statista.com in the year 2018 (Mohr 2019, online). It does make sense that the Huskies make use of hashtags involving their hometown, since the Huskies are the first American football club in Wels, they strive to brand themselves with this image of connectedness being rooted to their city.

Professional sports in American culture are played by adults, yet they are considerably more than just an activity for amusement. These games are able to make figurative remarks about society, which clarifies why they are such a popular phenomenon. In team sport such as American football, the achievement accomplished by an individual is subordinated to the success of the team, although individual success is one of the most desired cultural characteristic by U.S. Americans.

Football is a male-dominated activity, where male bonding gathers individuals and binds them into one unit (Rosman et al. 2017: 188). Therefore, it can be assumed that the value of bonding and brotherhood is imported through the game into other countries. The hashtag #riseasone implies the image of unity, which is a common trait among team sports.

However, the notion of unity and solidarity appears as a central point among American football teams. Football-relevant social media profiles are interspersed with quotes and images about team spirit, solidary aspects of participating in a team sport and sacrifice for one another. Ashton Henderson, a former Defensive Back for the Michigan State University managed to describe the essence of this so-called brotherhood in one sentence: ”Football is a brotherhood and as you continue to move through the ranks it only gets better.” (Henderson 2016, online).

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As a recurring image, the aspect of violence in American football is again represented with the hashtag #biteandfight. Obviously, biting and punching are penalized in football, but the hashtag refers to the name and image of the football club, the Husky. Referring to a competition as fight, which proves to be hardship might not be surprising. However, the wording fits the narrative of war imagery and terminology often occurring in American football.

At the 8th World Congress of Science and Football in 2015, Gerald Gems suggested in his presentation that the language of the sport is closely linked with the genesis of the United States. He claims the reason for the usage of terms such as: bomb, blitz, in the trenches, gunner, shotgun etc. is that the U.S. were founded in war and that the nation’s history has always had a violent background (Gems 2015: 7).

7. Representing Football in Print Media

Although print media may be seen as outdated by younger generations, they are still a common source of information for Austrians. The Digital News Report of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism focuses on the use of the news. Since 2012, international comparative research has been collecting data on the change in the use of analogue to digital news and deriving corresponding trends. The 2018 report for Austria reveals that nearly half of the interviewees exhibit a mixed behavior regarding news consumption (49.3%) (see Digital News Report Austria 2018). This means that they neither consume exclusively digital nor exclusively traditional main news sources, but rather a combination of online and offline news on different devices. However, the traditional mode of use has tended to decline over the course of the past few years (Gadringer et al. 2019: 16).

The Kleine Zeitung is one of the most purchased newspapers in Austria. A 2019 media analysis revealed that 442,000 Styrians read the Kleine Zeitung on a daily basis, which corresponds to a reach of a country wide 41.5%. With a daily lead of 110,000 readers, the Kleine Zeitung leaves the second-placed Kronen Zeitung behind. This is also applicable at weekends, when the Kleine Zeitung reaches 481,000 readers in Styria, according to the Austria Presse Agentur (APA, online). These numbers are significant for the reach the newspaper has in Styria.

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In the year 2017, the Kleine Zeitung published an article about the Styrian Reavers, an American football club located in the south of Styria. The article was printed in the “Süd & Südwest” (south and southwest) branch of the newspaper. Moreover, the article was also published online, on the internet page of the newspaper. An analysis of this article shows how key features of American football are represented and conveyed to an Austrian audience.

7.1.Hard-Boiled – and Confused

Figure 4: Photograph of a training session, taken from an online article of the Kleine Zeitung illustrating a typical situation from a football game (the ‘collision’).

The feature that is the most noticeable upon first looking at the article is arguably the photograph. It displays a training session on the football field of Tillmitsch, the hometown of the Styrian Reavers. Evidence for the picture showing a training session are the mostly white and black or blue jerseys that the players are wearing, with the quarterback wearing a red shirt, in order to distinguish him more easily.

As in the case of the Styrian Reavers, the offense can be identified by the white jersey color, due to the formation of the players and the quarterback being situated behind the players in white, determining that white is the offense color. Regarding the position of the defense wearing dark colored jerseys, the photograph seems to depict a form of Cover 1 defense, where the free safety is playing a deep zone located in the middle of the field, with the cornerbacks and 39 defensive line playing a man coverage. In other words, one can observe a typical football team training, where the offense and defense practice formations and tactics.

As a contrast to the picture the Huskies Wels uploaded onto social media, it appears that this photograph received less editing in terms of post-processing. Here, no filter is applied, and the picture appears as if it was created using a generic camera, rather than a digital reflex camera. In general, the photograph used in the article has a much less sensational look than the picture in the social media post. A possible reason for this observation might be that newspaper journalists employed by the Kleine Zeitung use the same camera and photography style for all the articles that are compiled by them.

It can be observed that the focal point of the camera is the collision between the offensive linemen and the defensive linemen. It cannot be clearly distinguished whether the picture was staged, in order to emphasize said colliding of linemen, or if it was taken without any instruction by the photographer. What is of interest is why this precise picture was chosen to be shown in an article representing American football in a southern state of Austria.

It appears that the photograph is intended to display the stereotypical violent aspect of football. Various forms of violence continue to fascinate others. Media outlets such as newspapers are well aware that exploiting violence, whether real or fictional, is a useful tool for enhancing market proposition (Dholakia 2018: 1035).

To the average reader, the concept of physicality of American football is demonstrated. A person that does not possess more than superficial knowledge of football, may be reassured of the prejudice that American football solely consists of large males colliding on a field. Although the written part of the article also reveals facets of the tactical side of the sport, it perpetuates an image of violence and toughness.

The aspect of masculinity is one key aspect of the newspaper article. The article is titled “Hier trainieren die richtig harten Kerle”, which would translate into “This is where the tough guys train.” Similar to the social media post of the Huskies Wels, the image of masculinity is heavily perpetuated already in the title. Andreas Winter, board member of the Styrian Reavers states in the article, that they “[…] are the real tough guys.”

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However, the image of masculinity is also strongly contrasted by the utterance that according to him, the actual fascination for the sport lies within the sophisticated precision and game tactics. However, this statement is less wondrous, considering the fact that the article mentions Winter as the former quarterback of the team, a position that requires quick thinking, technique and a sense for tactics.

The role of the quarterback for a football team is utterly central. Excellent physical and mental fitness is one of the key aspects, that a quarterback is expected to have. In addition, a quarterback should also have the confidence and trust of the entire team and thus be a leading figure for all other players. Together with the coach, he determines the plays, in a figurative way, he is the coach's extended arm, and decides at short notice whether the planned move can take place in a successful way. If this is not the case, he will give his comrades a new move in encrypted form, which may be audibles (orally uttered encoded words, which can be understood by the rest of the team as a change of the called play) or hand signs.

In any case, the quarterback receives the ball from the Center after the play command, depending on the selected attack formation, either directly in the arms or thrown several yards backwards. In a running game, it is the quarterback's task to place the ball in the arms of the running back at a pre-determined position, who has already found space through which he intends to break the opponent's defense.

One of the major challenges for a quarterback is a passing move. After receiving the ball, the quarterback gains time and space in front of the attacking opponents with a few quick backward steps. If everything results planned, he throws the ball in such a way that he reaches the selected Receiver exactly when the Receiver has reached the end point of his previously determined end pass route.

If the selected Receiver is covered by an opponent's defender, it is crucial that the quarterback recognizes this instantaneously and changes his plans in a way that still seems promising for the play. Either he himself finds a gap directly in front of him, through which he, like a running back, can still gain space, or another uncovered free man of his own. Otherwise he is may be faced by a , where the defenders tear him to the ground.

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As a general statement, American football appears to be confusing for many that want to become involved with the sport. This claim can be underlined with what the author suggests in the article after mentioning position-specific names for players: “[…] wer jetzt nur Bahnhof versteht […]” is a German phrase to express confusion or lack of knowledge. The author projects a presumption about the readers into her article. When the author automatically assumes that these terms are difficult to relate to football, this means she believes that football is in general a complicated sport for Austrians.

7.2.Names and Rules

A fascinating observation can be made in the writing of the first paragraph of the article. The author of the article, Barbara Kluger, begins her text by mentioning various positions, such as “Defensive Back”, “Reciever(sic!)” and “Quaterback(sic!)”. Firstly, what is remarkable is that the terms for the player positions are written in a grammatically wrong manner. Certainly, one could argue that these are typing errors, but two errors in the same sentence referring to a specific player position do appear as unlikely. What appears as more probable may be the assumption that the author did not have the knowledge how to write these words.

The assumption that American football is complicated for many non-Americans does not seem to be surprising. The high number of rules, players and apparently complicated terms seem to be a stereotypical aspect of the sport. Unlike most other sports, one can score three, six, seven or eight points with one play, depending on the completion. The size of the player squad is also likely to overwhelm one or the other fan in the beginning. Each team has 53 players under contract. defense and offense play separately and never is located together on the field. Then there are players who only enter the field in certain situations, which is the case for Special Team players. For example, the Kicker and the Punter, who are the only players allowed to play the ball with their feet.

When searching the internet for the rules of American football, one can find numerous relevant pages explaining the rules to various extents. It becomes clear that the aspect of confusing rules or an overload of rules is apparent in the German-speaking region of Europe. Various Austrian football teams offer an overview of the most important penalties, terms and rules of football on

42 their club homepage. The rules for American football are truly extensive. The Official Playing Rules of the National Football League is 89 pages long.

8. Summary of Findings

Firstly, what all three selected media contents commonly display as a representative trait of American football is a strong sense of masculinity. Indeed, professional football is a male domain and therefore seemingly addresses typical masculine maxims. Sport in general has the potential to establish a hypermasculine culture and endorse violence and aggression (Phipps 2020: 360). However, the naturally occurring physical contact and collision as a necessary part of the game is strongly foregrounded regarding the image of football. According to the findings above, one can observe a fundamentally sensational approach to masculine traits regarding media content. The aspect of tactics and teamwork is not at all as foregrounded as the display of strength and toughness, although these aspects are just as characteristic to the game.

One could assume that offensive plays and defensive schemes could be used as well to represent football in Austrian media, as they are key concepts of the game. Instead, the selected media outlets choose to feature tackles, martial notions of fighting and a sense of brotherhood among the teams. Another observation apparent in the selected media content is the depiction of bodies and physicality. What the three media have in common is the depiction of bodily movement in various forms: a tackle, a run play and a collision. These images appear to depict typical situations in football. However, it appears that these images strongly emphasize the body. The helmet and shoulder pads further masculinize the male physical appearance.

Secondly, the aspect of violence and supremacy is another aspect that seems to constantly appear in football-related media content. As mentioned earlier, the individual achievement of the player is subordinated to success of the team. This in turn suggests that a player is expected to either endure or inflict violence. When one aggressively collides with another player, his body is metaphorically turned into a weapon. Hypermasculine traits such as the domination of the other in the form of strength or speed were found in the media content. The conversion of the body into a tool is a reappearing theme of the representation of football in Austrian media.

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Thirdly, football is shown as something exotic in the Austrian sports sphere. The advertisement of the football broadcast suggests a sense of novelty of the sport. In a metaphorical sense, the advertisement shows the clash between a traditional, established sport and new one. Since the most watched sports events in Austria are generally soccer and skiing competitions, football is represented as a sport that is rather unknown to Austrians.

This aspect is further emphasized in the newspaper article in the Kleine Zeitung, where the author suggests that football is a complicated sport. Arguably, the game of football possesses a greater set of rules and playing positions as e.g. soccer. This implies that football, as opposed to soccer, appears to be more confusing to an Austrian audience. However, the now established NFL broadcast in Austrian television is a sign of the increasing popularity of the sport in Austria. Although the sport may be represented as a complicated one, the numerous rules how to correctly play the sport in turn enable the utilization of a high degree of tactics.

9. Conclusion

Sports are a defining aspect of every culture. They are as much a characteristic of a culture, as their language. Cultural identity is of importance when considering how globalization gives way to new sports foreign sports are implemented in other cultures. American football is the highest grossing sport in the United States of America. It is the most profitable American sports league, not only with a national fanbase, but with a fanbase of an international level. The National Football League is the most prestigious football league worldwide. The NFL consists of 32 franchise teams, which each possess their own characteristics.

With multi-million-dollar contracts for NFL stars and the Super Bowl being the undisputed highlight of every annual football season, the sport has found its way into the European sporting scene over the course of the last decades. Being an American import, football has become a sport which is played on an European and International level. International championships as well as European championships have emerged and established themselves. With victories in the Central (CEFL), Austrian football teams can be regarded as successful ones even on a European level. Considering the aspect that soccer is the most financially profitable sport in Austria, success of Austrian soccer clubs in European contests does not appear to be as significant.

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The sport began to flourish in the 1980s, when the first Austrian teams conducted a full season. The rising popularity of the sport continues to last. Several decades after the premiere of the Austrian Football League, numerous teams and divisions have emerged in Austria. However, football remains an amateur sport, meaning that even in the highest-ranking leagues, there is no financial reward for players.

Instead, becoming a member of a football team often involves a membership fee. Nevertheless, football is more popular than it has ever been in Austria. There are fanbases for Austrian teams as well, which regularly attend games of their favorite club. This may be explained with the fact the Austrian Football League employs highly similar league and division system compared to the NFL. With the rules being virtually similar to American college football, the Austrian football experience can be regarded as a genuine one. Paired with the fact that several German speaking TV Outlets are broadcasting the NFL season annually, there evidently is a certain audience among Austrians that enjoy the sport.

To many, football is more than simply a sport to watch. Football is often associated with stereotypical aspects of U.S. culture, such as Super Bowl parties and patriotism. Evidently, the number of Super Bowl parties in the Austrian bars has risen. Austrians enjoy gathering in order to watch football games in public places, in a similar fashion as they gather to watch a soccer game.

According to an aforementioned study, Austrians consider themselves as a rather ‘proud’ nation in the sense of patriotism. This parallels notion of American patriotism connected to football. Austrians gradually embraced the American sport. This may be explained due to the fact that football is an inclusive sport regarding body weight and size. Various positions in football require respective physical player attributes. Different body types are embraced within the sport, since they prove to be beneficial for the success of the team.

Football is a rather iconic sport. In general, one associates the typical ball and the collision of players with the sport. Therefore, the field of semiotics benefited the analysis of the representation of football in the Austrian media. The signs that are shown in the media content range from text and voice to clothing and posture. These signs are objects in any given form that produce meanings.

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As in all representation combines language and meaning in order to form culture. Meaning must be understood as mental concepts of objects in any form and language as signs as any given form. To an audience, meaning is merely suggested. Those who create the content are in the position to signify i.e. give meaning to what is revealed and in turn decoded by the recipients. Media creators decide what is shown in which manner, resulting in a certain way football is depicted.

This paper aimed to reveal the ways and circumstances in which football is displayed in selected Austrian media. As a general statement about the representation of football in Austrian media, it must be mentioned that the sport is strongly reduced to the physical aspects of the game. Strong concepts of physicality, of violence as well as masculinity are generally associated with the game.

The shoulder pads and helmet increase the perception of a menacing ‘gladiator’ in a sports contest. In general, tackling or colliding with an opponent as well as the physical superiority in the sense of power and speed are represented. Throughout the analyzed media content football is – be it self-represented through a social media platform or represented through advertisement and news articles – depicted as a masculine sport that requires toughness in order to be successful.

Although tactics, are as essential a part of football as violence is, the tactical aspect of the sport is given a more subordinate role regarding representation. Furthermore, the great number of rules seems to be hard to overcome for the average Austrian. The rules of football may exceed the ones that soccer for instance employs, nevertheless Austrians appear to enjoy the sport. On the one hand, the sport is represented as a confusing and tactical one, on the other football is shown as a violent collision sport. Tactics combined with violence seems to create an exotic mix for the Austrian audience.

Ultimately, football remains a fringe sport in Austria and thus the media coverage is rather scarce. Although continuously more media platforms broadcast football in Austrian television, the popularity of the sport media-wise remains rather meager compared to professional sports. Additionally, the broadcast of minor AFL division games is mostly reduced to social media platforms.

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Eventually, one can only speculate whether the Austrian Football League may one day be as popular as regular soccer in Austria. The football sphere increases slowly, but steadily. With media coverage depicting the sport as physical and tough, football remains a violent sport, which is simultaneously one of the most tactical ones there is.

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