Them and Us: Story and Stereotype in TV World Cup Coverage

Abstract

British television coverage of the 1990 soccer World Cup provides a context in which to explore some of the ways in which television seeks to construct coherent narratives about ongoing events. In telling such stories television draws upon distinctive narrative strategies and on extensive reservoirs of stereotypes. This is seen in elementary form in the techniques by which television commentary defines and develops particular `characters', and more elaborately in the construction of extended narrative accounts of the activities of national teams — notably, in this paper, Cameroon and England. These accounts are seen to be rooted in discourses that formulate key distinctions in terms of race and national identity, and, by circulating applications of such systems of stereotypes, television contributes to the production and reproduction of our everyday knowledge of `Them' and `Us'.