Pleitbezorger van de voetbalkijker: Het discours over voetbal op televisie in de Nederlandse dagbladen tussen 1950 en 1980

Between 1950 and 1980, television in the Netherlands became a mass medium, which attracted a large audience, in part by broadcasting football matches and news. Scholars have theorised how the rise of a new medium creates anxiety and feelings of rivalry with established media as they are confronted with a new competitor. This paper focuses on this premise by examining to what extent and how such feelings of rivalry between television and newspapers are part of the metadiscourse on football and television within the ranks of Dutch dailies between 1950 and 1980. Based on the results of this qualitative discourse analysis, this paper argues that newspapers certainly discussed the rise of football coverage on television, but did not show any signs of being afraid that television would offer a harmful competition. Much rather, in defending the right to free news gathering as well as the interests of the audience, newspapers positioned themselves by and large as great supporters of football coverage on television.