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"Video gaming is economically, educationally, culturally, socially and theoretically important, and has, in a relatively short period of time, firmly cemented its place within contemporary life. It is fair to say, however, that the majority of research to date has focused most specifically on either the video games themselves, or the direct engagement of gamers with a specific piece of game technology. In contrast, Video Gamers is the first book to explicitly and comprehensively address how digital games are experienced and engaged with in the everyday lives, social networks and consumer patterns of those who play them. In doing so, the book provides a key introduction to the study of gamers and the games they play, whilst also reflecting on the current debates and literatures surrounding the virtual world"--

Consuming Sport offers a detailed consideration of how sport is experienced and engaged with in the everyday lives, social networks and consumer patterns of its followers. It examines the processes of becoming a sport fan, and the social and moral career that supporters follow as their involvement develops over a life-course.The book argues that while for many people sport matters, for many more, it does not. Though for some sport is significant in shaping their social and cultural identity, it is often consumed and experienced by others in quite mundane and everyday ways, thr

This article presents a theorization of the induction and patterns of behaviour of the sport supporter along a social and moral career path. I argue that too often theorizations of contemporary sport supporters have relied upon restrictive and rigid typologies or dichotomies based upon excessively subjective codes of authenticity. I suggest that what is required is a return to the Chicagoan concept of status passage and career, married with an understanding of the fluidity and temporality of many contemporary `communities'. Specifically, here I apply this model to the case of supporters of the British ice hockey team the Manchester Storm, but suggest that this theorization could be applied to many other supporter, enthusiast or fan `communities'.

This article presents a consideration of the major findings from 1425 respondents to two large-scale questionnaire-based surveys of supporters of the British ice hockey club Manchester Storm conducted in 1998 and 1999. It is the intention of this article to provide a source of comparative information on a relatively under-researched audience and as a basis for continuing research on sport audiences, both in Britain and internationally. These surveys suggest that the audience at Manchester Storm is primarily composed of local, mixed gender, family based units, with a large proportion of respondents with what would appear to be relatively affluent occupations and incomes, and is significantly different in profile to that witnessed at many other British mass spectator sports.

"As the digital revolution continues apace, emergent technologies and means of communication present new challenges and opportunities for the football industry. This is the first book to bring together key contemporary debates at the intersection of football studies, leisure studies and digital cultural studies. It presents cutting edge theoretical and empirical work based around four key themes: theorising digital football cultures; digital football fandom; football and social media; and football (sub)cybercultures. Covering topics such as transnational digital fandom, online abuse and gender, Digital Football Cultures argues that we are witnessing the hyper-digitalization of the world's most popular sport. This book is a valuable resource for students and researchers working in leisure studies, sports studies, football studies and critical media studies, as well as geography, anthropology, criminology and sociology. It is also fascinating reading for anybody working in sport, media and culture"--

1. Introduction: What Is Cosplay? -- 2. Contextualising the Artwork -- 3. Cosplay and Art as Research Method -- 4. Cosplay as Subculture -- 5. Identity and Performance -- 6. Crafting Cosplay -- 7. Playful Cultures and the Appropriation of Urban Space -- 8. Conclusion: Decentring Cosplay

What is Leisure Studies? Who are the key figures in the field? How can we evaluate the relevance of concepts in the field? This is the first full length Dictionary of Leisure Studies. It examines the key concepts, assesses the work of central figures and helps students zero-in on essential issues and conceptual distinctions. The Book: Provides an unprecedented critical survey of the field. Offers students authoritative, comprehensive accounts of the basic concepts and leading figures. Provides students with core resources to write essays and pass exams. Written by teachers experienced with the

This article considers cosplayers' use and transformation of urban space. Cosplay provides an important subcultural embodiment of contemporary popular culture, through which we can learn a great deal about contemporary forms of fandom, participatory culture and (mostly notably here) urban appropriation. This article draws on data gathered from a four-year ethnographic study, which includes the use of art as a method, but here specifically looks at a small cosplay community that regularly meets in a park in Manchester. The article argues that a useful way of understanding cosplay is to consider the relationship between play and culture. In particular, the article sets out a consideration of how cosplayers transform social spaces through the use of process of synecdoche and asyndeton, which link together and edit out parts of the built environment – or what we term 'urban poaching'.

This paper develops out of ongoing research into the location and use of digital gaming in practices of everyday life. Specifically this paper draws on a questionnaire based survey of just under four hundred undergraduate students and twenty-three follow up interviews. This paper suggests that the women in this research play digital games significantly less than their male counterparts, and suggests that this is largely due to digital games continuing to be viewed, both culturally and by the gaming industry, as belonging to men. However, this paper suggests that for some women video and computer gaming can be an important social activity, and for others mobile telephone based gaming can offer a less restricted and more accessible leisure activity.

This article presents a consideration of the female followers of men's ice hockey in the UK, questions why this sport has been so popular in attracting a high proportion of female supporters and considers their place and location within this supporter base. In particular, the article argues that the perceived safety and accessibility of ice hockey has proved important in attracting many female supporters. However, this research argues that female followers of UK ice hockey continue to remain marginalized within this supporter community, and are deemed by many other (often male) supporters as not 'real fans' but simply 'puck bunnies' who are there to 'lust' after the players. These assertions, we suggest, originate in male supporters' fears of losing their male-dominated domain and in insecurities concerning their own adulation of male sports stars. However, interviews with 37 followers of The Manchester Storm indicate no significant differences in the levels of knowledge and commitment between male and female supporters, or that the physical attractiveness of players performs any significant role in attracting women to ice hockey.

This book explores patterns of gameplay and sociality afforded by online gaming. Bringing together essays from leading and emerging academics, this book explores key issues in understanding online gaming, including: patterns of play, legality, production, identity, gamer communities, communication, social exclusion and inclusion, and considers future directions in online gaming.

This paper provides a short and potted recent history of digital games research in Great Britain. We begin this story in 2001. Though a substantial amount of research and writing on digital games has been taking place in Britain since at least the 1980s, for us the turn of the new millennium marks a logical starting point of our recent history. Not only was this the year that Aarseth (2001) marked as 'year one' for 'computer game research', it was also the year that the first major international conference on digital games took place in the UK (in Bristol), and the first time a major British government grant was awarded to undertake research on digital gaming. The paper then charts the significant role Britain played in hosting major early international gatherings of (now leading) games researchers, such as those in Bristol and also Manchester. As well as the important crop of early British-authored (text) books that helped shape the direction of this new and emerging discipline. What we then see is a significant growth in British digital games studies focused on a number of key events, research clusters, and publications, and the development of a particular framing of digital games within a wider social, cultural and political context. It is this, we would suggest, that has given British digital game studies its particular flavour and also its important global role in pushing forward research, theory, and key debates.

This paper explores the contemporary nature of association football consumption. In particular, we argue that the coronavirus 2019 pandemic reveals the contemporary and particular nature of the relationship between football and its supporters, which is increasingly focused on the consumption of themed digital participatory experiences. During this pandemic, what fans missed was not only live football, but also the sporting 'experience' and the opportunities for participation that this provides. Hence, here we saw fans, clubs and media providers employing new digital technologies to create themed experiences that facilitated (and mediated) participation and interaction. Following Žižek (2014), we suggest that the coronavirus 2019 pandemic can be understood as a global mega event that creates a seismic, reality alerting schism, whose aftermath requires new ontologies and theories. Our response is to utilise a number of key and illustrative examples and to offer a new synthesis of theories and literatures, most notably, on the experience society, theming, participatory culture, neoliberalism and digital culture. This new context and (re)combination of theories then provides a new, and essential, perspective that reveals a great deal about the contemporary nature of the sport, what fans buy into, and also, how this may change post pandemic.

This paper considers the key findings of a year-long collaborative research project focusing on the audience of the London Symphony Orchestra and their introduction of a new mobile telephone ('app') ticketing system. A mixed-method approach was employed, utilizing focus groups and questionnaires with over 80 participants, to research a sample group of university students. This research develops our understanding of classical music audiences, and highlights the continued individualistic, middle-class, and exclusionary culture of classical music attendance and patterns of behaviours. The research also suggests that a mobile phone app does prove a useful mechanism for selling discounted tickets, but shows little indication of being a useful means of expanding this audience beyond its traditional demographic.

This updated, new edition of Introducing Cultural Studies provides a systematic and comprehensible introduction to the concepts, debates and latest research in the field. Reinforcing the interdisciplinary nature of Cultural Studies, the authors first guide the reader through cultural theory before branching out to examine different dimensions of culture in detail - including globalisation, the body, geography, fashion, and politics.