Conflict between “spectating” and “viewing” sports:

Ekidens and Marathons

Abstract

This article aims to elucidate the conflict of social action between “spectating” and “viewing” sports. After providing a definition of watching, spectating sport in a stadium and viewing it through the media will be compared with a focus on Ekidens and Marathons. This will be achieved by conducting an analysis of cheering acts accompanied by the act of spectating.
Spectating live sports events is a social action in which people pursue “excitement”. This “excitement” can be seen in challenges which are generated by the competitiveness of performance and the unpredictable processes of the game, and narratives in the game development.
Transforming the reality of sports via the framework of TV creates a media reality. To heighten the reality, it is down-keyed into the original: the sports reality. In addition, thanks to the latest TV technologies, details that cannot be seen in the actual stadium are broadcast, which differentiate from the sports reality. They are, however, re-created details through the medium of television, not those selected by spectators on their own initiative. Furthermore, the atmosphere one feels in a stadium and the physical sensation of being looked at by the players cannot be experienced through the media, in which the inter-subjectivity of ‘looking’ and ‘being looked at’ hardly exists.
Moreover, cheering evoked by spectating stimulates one’s excitement. Particularly, the collective performance of cheering resonates in people, creating a sense of unity and quickening their pulse. On the other hand, in Japan the situation exists where a cheering party plays an important role in tranquilizing the excited supporters. Expressing the enthusiasm obtained by cheering is only allowed in the extraordinary world so that if they find ordinariness in it, the excitement is soon tranquilized. Likewise, for Ekiden and Marathon, roads for daily use are turned into an extraordinary state for racing, but the cheering is tranquilized, returning the roads to normal once the runners go past the spectators.
The conflict between “spectating” and “viewing” sports will never come to an end.