The Rhetoric of Conflict Inside and Outside the Stadium: The Case Study of an Italian Football Cheer Group - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 203

11.2 Case Study

11.2.1 Participants, Aims, and Methodology

The aim of the present study is to investigate the discursive construction of cheer
culture, specifically focusing on the dynamics of ingroup and outgroup identity
construction. The main assumption of this study is that the analysis of these
constructs may help researchers in investigating the basis of social conflict. To this
end, we encountered some exponents of a national organized football cheer group,
named Drughi (fans of Juventus F.C.), and we listened to some public discourses on
their radio program (named “ 3 stelle sulla pelle ” D “Three stars on the skin”). Even
the title of the program is intended to fulfill a polemical and provocative aim: several
years ago, the Juventus Football Club was legally punished, so two championships
were rescinded. In other words, even if Juventus actually had two stars, the fans
claim that the team had three stars earned “on the field” and imprinted on their skin
(Fig. 11.1 ).
Four episodes of the program were analyzed, two after two winning matches and
two after two losing matches. In all cases, the matches were played against what
fans perceived as bitter rivals.
The episodes were recorded on Mondays - so after each match, usually played
on either Saturday or Sunday - and lasted approximately 1 h. The first one was
broadcast following a loss to the Inter team (3 November 2012), the second one
following a loss to the Milan team (25 November 25 2012), the third one following
a win over the Milan team (21 April 21 2013), and the fourth one following a win
over the Turin team (28 April 28 2013).

Fig. 11.1 Flyer of the radio program analyzed