Ilan Tamir

The Decline of Nationalism among Football Fans

Throughout the history of the nation-state, political leaders have used sport as a means of promoting individual and national agendas. Over the last few years, their hold over sport appears to have weakened. In an era of commercialization, individualism, and globalization, many sport fans have access to matches from all over the world at all hours of the day. This commentary argues that while the broadcasting of international football tournaments remains highly profitable for national television networks, their close relationship with national political agendas will continue to weaken.

A Match Made in Heaven?! Sport, Television, and New Media in the Beginning of the Third Millennia

Over the last five decades, the symbiotic relationship between sport and the media in general, and television in particular, has been described as a “match made in heaven.” This essay is a conceptual introduction to the special issue in Television & New Media on sport, television, and new media at the beginning of the third millennia.

“Here’s Hoping We Get Pummeled” Anti-Nationalist Trends Among Israeli Sports Fans

This study discusses changes in football fans’ perception of nationalism in recent years. A growing number of athletes, fans, and sports teams have been explicitly prioritizing their own particular individual interests over national ones. National football teams nowadays enjoy far less support from their fans, whose allegiances are often multiple and who, at times, even reject their own national team. Globalization and the rise of social networks, along with economic and individual agendas, have all been chipping away at national sports teams’ popularity. Using content analyses of online forums and Israeli football fans’ Facebook groups during times the national team was playing, this study aims to reveal a variety of vested interests on multiple levels, which serve to undermine national sports hegemony.

From Munich to Boston, and from Theater to Social Media: The Evolutionary Landscape of World Sporting Terror

Modern terrorist attacks are usually characterized by intentionally extreme public displays of massive violence to get wide propagation, courtesy of the media. This article uses large-scale, world sporting events, from the 1972 Munich massacre to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing to document and analyze how terror acts grew and acclimatized into a reality in which the symbiotic, massive linkage between two gigantic entities—sports and the media—allows terrorism to prosper.

Sports: Faster, Higher, Stronger, and Public Relations

Abstract Sport in the modern age is both politics and business. In a combined world of politics, business, hatred, jealousy and boastfulness, in which each person aims to achieve his objective while “disregarding all the rules,” as Orwell describes, public relations are a valuable strategic and tactical weapon. Success is not measured on the sports field alone, but in the newspaper headlines, on the television and the computer screens and in the bank account. The motto once proposed by Baron Pierre de Coubertin-“Citius, Altius, Fortius” (faster, higher, stronger)-is slowly clearing the way for a new, more updated motto: “Faster, higher, stronger, bigger (business) and especially-more PR.”

Socio‐cultural characteristics of physical activity habits in Israel (1992‐2008)

Purpose – In spite of the fact that the health, mental, and educational benefits of physical activity are well documented, information is still lacking regarding the physical activity patterns in Israeli society. The purpose of the present study is to shed light on the changes of physical activity practices between the years 1992‐2008 and to analyze the main reasons for such changes.Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted among 501 adults (ages 18‐69) representing the Jewish Hebrew‐speaking population of Israel.Findings – The percentage of Israelis who engaged in physical activity more than doubled between 1992 and 2008. Almost 56 percent of Israelis took part in some activity on a regular basis in 2008.Originality/value – This investigation of some of these factors uncovers a cultural transformation as well as demographic, global, and cognitive processes, all of which affected and reflected upon physical activity in Israeli society during that period.

The Boston Game and the ISIS Match Terrorism, Media, and Sport

The world is becoming largely interconnected. This notion has thought-provoking implications due to the fact that this interdependence affords terrorist organizations opportunities to perpetrate attacks. It is inevitable that an increased risk of terrorism, especially on the forefront of megasporting events, is on the rise due to the global publicity such attacks receive. This article focuses on the Boston Marathon Bombing and the Islamic State and illustrates how high-profile news coverage and coverage on social media (through user-generated content or “terrorist organization”–generated content) advance terrorist groups’ attempts to use large-scale sporting events to leverage their agenda and ideology.

Promoting Terror or Sport? The Case of Qatar’s International Image

Qatar’s successful bid for hosting the 2022 soccer World Cup is regarded as one in a series of attempts to change Qatar’s image as a terror-sponsoring state. To understand the power of hosting megasport events to rebuild a country’s international image, the present study compares the coverage of Qatari sport affairs with concurrent terror-sponsoring allegations, via a sentiment analysis of coverage of Qatari affairs by three international networks (SKY, CNN, and ITV) between August 20, 2013 and December 31, 2014. Surprisingly, the analysis found that terror-related articles contained significantly more positive sentiment than articles on other issues, whereas the tone toward Qatar in sport-related articles was significantly less positive than other topics. The study illustrates the limits of using sport as a soft power strategy, and underscores the superiority of on-the-ground efforts to deflect terror allegations as a strategy for improving a country’s image.

Radio presence in online platforms in Israel

Abstract This article explores the ways in which the medium of radio is currently being used on Israel’s various online platforms. It shows how via their internet presence, radio stations have begun broadcasting live online, offering select segments of their programmes, and maintaining correspondence and dialogue with their listeners. Moreover, the traditional radio stations have also been staking their claim to social media with a growing number of them not only present on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, but also branching out to a variety of mobile apps in an attempt to engage with their listeners.

The games must go on? The influence of terror attacks on hosting sporting events in Israel

The terrorist campaign against Israel, euphemized as the ‘al-Aqsa intifada’, affected Israeli society in terms of perceptions of personal security, economic and political stability and aspects such as tourism and culture. The Israeli sporting scene was affected as well. From 2001 to 2004, international sports organizations adopted policies in stark contrast to one another. While some banned certain sports events from taking place in Israel, others obliged athletes to come to Israel and fined them for refusing to do so. A comparison of how these organizations chose to act in similar cases around the world reveals a striking inconsistency. An examination of the events and information provided in personal interviews indicates that sports associations fail to define terrorism and the conditions under which competitions should be banned.