< Back to previous page

Project

Sports betting mediatization

This project will address several gaps in our current understanding of sports betting, media and the research approaches to studying them, all at once. To that end, the literature can be summarized in three major parts: sports gambling is socially relevant, both historically and topically (Reith, 1999; Villeneuve & Pasquier, 2019), the science that studies sports betting behavior is not interdisciplinary and strongly driven by the perspective of the Anglo-Saxon problem gambler (Cassidy et al, 2014; Lawn et al., 2020), media-related sports betting research is scarce and when available focused on marketing communications, video games and the media effects paradigm (Albarràn-Torres, 2018; Guilou-Landreat et al., 2021).

The specific theoretical framework on which this PhD project therefore relies looks at the role of media from a "deep mediatization approach" (hereafter: DMA; Hepp, 2013: Hepp, 2020). The basic idea of the DMA is to examine the deep "diffusion of technology-based media in society" and thereby test the assumption that (all) "social domains are increasingly shaped by these media." This can be done from a materialist, social constructivist or institutionalist perspective or a mixture of these perspectives (Pallas, 2020; Hepp et al., 2018:17-18).

In recent years, the deep mediatization theory has been put forward as a promising paradigm for the field of media and communication studies, mainly because it constitutes "a space for synthesized insights into media-related social transformations" that goes beyond the notion of small-scale media effects (Ekström et al., 2016: 1; Frissen, 2019). In particular, the specific approach and operationalization of mediatization theory by the Communicative Figurations Research Network (KoFi), a German branch of the mediatization community (Hepp, Breiter, & Hasebrink, 2018) has received much praise. Characteristic of this particular branch is its focus on a social constructivist-materialist understanding of the "molding forces "that mediated communication processes can exert on the structuring of a social activity or domain, and its application of Norbert Elias' (1978) figurative toolkit to make these structuring processes empirically amenable.

A KoFi-inspired, figurative DMA revolves around exploring and isolating the ways in which a given "media ensemble" (Hepp, 2020: 59, Hepp, 2013) is responsible for structuring a so-called "communicative figuration" (Hepp, 2013: 616). A media ensemble (ME) is produced by the sum of media deployed for purposes within a given communicative figuration (Wolf & Wudarski, 2018). A communicative figuration is best understood as an interrelated network of a certain size (i.e., general to specific in scope), consisting of the following elements:

- A constellation of actors, which may be individuals, collectivities, communities, or organizations;
- A set of communicative practices (CP) through which the actors interact with each other, depend on each other, and construct meaning with each other, and for which they require (a) particular (set of) media;
- A shared, orienting relevance framework (FR), expressed through certain semantic understandings, (un)written rules or codes, which distinguish figuration from other figurations and as such define a "we-relationship" (Schrøder, 2018; Hepp, 2020; Xi, 2019:4159; Schutz, 1970).

The overarching goal of this projecgt is to use this synchronous, figurative deep mediatization methodology to conduct a deepened investigation into the mediatized nature of the sports gambling landscape that has emerged in recent years within the Flemish Community, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (Elias, 1978; Hepp, 2013; Hepp, Breiter & Hasebrink, 2018). The following research questions will be addressed:

- RQ 1: Who are the actors of the Flemish sports betting figuration? How do they relate to each other?
- RQ 2: What does the Flemish media ensemble for sports betting look like? Which media (processes) does it consist of?
- RQ 3: What are communicative practices around sports betting of the actors and through which media from the media ensemble do these practices take place?
- RQ 4: What are the relevance frameworks of the sports gambling configuration and how do they align with the communicative practices taking place (through media)?

The preconceived figurative mediatization analysis will be conducted mixed-methodologically, following a triangulation of methods that are applied cross-medially (Schroder, 2018; Hasebrink & Hepp, 2017).

Date:1 Oct 2019 →  4 Sep 2023
Keywords:Gambling, Media studies, Sports betting, Mediatization
Disciplines:Communication sciences not elsewhere classified
Project type:PhD project