“Chele Varakashi” English Premiere League viewership and the resurfacing of political public sphere in Zimbabwe’s beerhalls.

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue VI, June 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

“Chele Varakashi” English Premiere League viewership and the resurfacing of political public sphere in Zimbabwe’s beerhalls.

Kudakwashe Henry Chidziya
THE HERALD, Zimbabwe

Abstract: This paper focuses on the embedded political undertones produced and reproduced by English Premiership League (EPL) football viewers in Zimbabwe’s new political discursive spheres – Beer Halls. It explores the nexus of football fans viewership patterns, commentary and how these attitudes reflect on how football viewership reproduces underlying political fractures that exist in Zimbabwe. Largely credited to the Frankfurt theorist, Jurgen Habermas (1960) a public sphere is an imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space which is made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society. Often football viewership becomes an outlay of wider societal struggles. Beer halls offer space for the playing out of these power dynamics which manifest through football fans viewership and commentary. This article explores the authors’ ethnographic encounters with EPL viewers in beer halls. It explores how football commentary is not monolithic but has in it subtle undertones which speaks to the socio-political tensions in Zimbabwe. Football viewership and commentary in Zimbabwe’s beer halls is fraught with power undercurrents.

Keywords: football; public sphere; audience; commentary; political undertones; gender; Zimbabwe

I.INTRODUCTION

This study demonstrates the nexus of EPL football fans viewership and the production of political sentiments in public spheres in Zimbabwe. Emanating from Frankfurt theorist Jurgen Habermas (1960), the concept of public sphere is made up of private people gathered together as a public while articulating the needs of society. More recent studies have however postulated the demise of a public sphere characterized with physical interaction with the emergence of social media which is the alternative audience centered public sphere (Papacharissi 2010). However, in acknowledgement of Papacharissi (2010) sentiments that the concept of public sphere has transformed into a more modern virtual approach with less physical interaction, it can still be argued that Habermas’ public sphere concept still stand the test of time though with a different context. Habermasian Bourgeois concept reports that the ‘public realm’ existed not as a sphere of interaction and debate but merely of representation (Anderson 1991). This made the whole concept elitist. Concurring with Anderson (1991) critique that the public sphere concept has elitist tendencies, Papacharissi (2010) notes that the new public sphere hinged on digital participation is also elitist due to digital participation divide tendencies. This analysis shows that the concept of public sphere is omnipresent in political discussions, especially on how football viewership mirrors political status in Zimbabwe’s beer halls.

Read More