Page 77 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

66 • Sport, Media and Society

It is interesting to observe the continuing prevalence of these shot types over thirty
years later. During the England versus Japan match, the primary image, or normal
shot, was a shot of the pitch from the halfway line, supplemented by shots of play-
ers, shots of the bench and a shot of the whole pitch from above the goal. The men’s
match, England versus Russia, used similar shot types but included an aerial shot
capable of looking down on players from above the stadium. The men’s match was
shown in widescreen, whereas the women’s match was not, probably dictated by the
origin of the World Cup images in China.
Buscombe (1975b: 30) noted, in the men’s game, the lack of the kind of close-up
shot that he considered to be characteristic of drama, observing that most shots were
‘either of about one-eighth of the pitch or of one or two players, their bodies more

or less filling the frame from top to bottom. Anything closer than the latter or further
away than the former is very rare.’ By contrast, in the England versus Japan match,
there were a great many close-up shots as well as long shots. Inevitably, this greater
frequency of close-ups has an effect on the framing of sport. Modleski (1984: 99)
argued that the effect of the close up in soap opera is to enable the audience to ‘wit-
ness the characters’ expressions, which are complex and intimately coded, signify-
ing triumph, bitterness, despair, confusion—the entire emotional register, in fact’. In
doing so, Modleski maintained that the close-up activated not only a feminine gaze,
but a maternal one, provoking anxiety about the welfare of others. Since televised
sport has long been considered a masculine media genre, the increasing prevalence
of close-ups has the capacity to alter the way the viewer is positioned. Close-ups of
players anxious before a penalty kick, jubilant after a goal or in pain from an injury
could be said to have a similar effect of constructing an intimate viewing position
for the spectator.
Live action from both matches was broadcast with colours at all times approxi-
mating the natural. Buscombe (1975b) saw naturalistic colour as part of a general ne-
glect of the technical possibilities of television in its broadcast of football, leading to
an effect of realism. Buscombe noted that the camera positions—on one side of the
pitch, approximately on the halfway line—were in accord with the 180 degree rule of
classic realist cinema (dictating that if two people are placed opposite each other and
the camera is showing them from one side, the director may not cut to a shot showing
the characters from the opposite side). Such a position, Buscombe suggested, was the
simulated viewpoint of an older, richer and more neutral football spectator seated in
the stands at the halfway line. This was because in 1975, football stadiums in Britain
had limited seating, with cheaper spots available for standing spectators on the ter-
races behind the goals. Simple edits between camera shots during the match added
to an overall effect of realism in the televising of football.
Various graphics of the same type were overlaid on the image during both matches.
The BBC logo, the digital clock showing time elapsed, abbreviations for the national
teams and the score all remained constant during the play. Before the match, graph-
ics showing team formations were shown and, occasionally, punctuating the play,