TY - JOUR
T1 - Video Assistant Referee in a Small-Nation Context
T2 - Intensified Mediatization
AU - Frandsen, Kirsten
AU - Landgrebe, Kirstine
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.
PY - 2022/9
Y1 - 2022/9
N2 - Using the Danish Superliga as a case, this article explores how football’s implementation of a video assistant referee (VAR) instigates complex processes of change which imply not only a further decrease in football’s institutional autonomy, but also intensifies inequality. It is argued that the implementation has to be seen from the perspective of professional football’s historical relationship with broadcast television; however, implementation of VAR represents a qualitative shift in the digital age, in which football’s dependence on media reaches a new functional level. André Jansson’s critical conceptualization of mediatization as transactional, ritual, and functional dependence is used as a framework for exploring how values, roles, and practices are under transformation among players, coach/managers, and referees. The analysis illustrates how the small-nation context, existing national and international hegemonic structures, and inequalities in combination with media logic and economics play a significant role and influence ongoing renegotiations of values and practices among these key actors. It also shows how refereeing is becoming much more complex with VAR, moving the pressure to the new role as video assistant referee, creating dilemmas in the team of referees and changing the authority of the referee from an individual into a more collective matter.
AB - Using the Danish Superliga as a case, this article explores how football’s implementation of a video assistant referee (VAR) instigates complex processes of change which imply not only a further decrease in football’s institutional autonomy, but also intensifies inequality. It is argued that the implementation has to be seen from the perspective of professional football’s historical relationship with broadcast television; however, implementation of VAR represents a qualitative shift in the digital age, in which football’s dependence on media reaches a new functional level. André Jansson’s critical conceptualization of mediatization as transactional, ritual, and functional dependence is used as a framework for exploring how values, roles, and practices are under transformation among players, coach/managers, and referees. The analysis illustrates how the small-nation context, existing national and international hegemonic structures, and inequalities in combination with media logic and economics play a significant role and influence ongoing renegotiations of values and practices among these key actors. It also shows how refereeing is becoming much more complex with VAR, moving the pressure to the new role as video assistant referee, creating dilemmas in the team of referees and changing the authority of the referee from an individual into a more collective matter.
KW - decision-aid technologies
KW - football
KW - mediatization
KW - refereeing
KW - small nation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130150494&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/21674795221090425
DO - 10.1177/21674795221090425
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85130150494
SN - 2167-4795
VL - 10
SP - 811
EP - 829
JO - Communication and Sport
JF - Communication and Sport
IS - 5
ER -