The England team have weathered the storm and are into the last 16 of the World Cup. As usual, certain characters have emerged from the team such as goal scorer Jermaine Defoe or manager Fabio Capello to take the spotlight and portray the ‘personality’ of the England team as a whole – a personality that may well be based on fact, or the manipulation of public feeling at the time. The success of Wednesday is cause for English celebration certainly, but one look at news headlines reveals a hyper-confidence generated by the press. The Guardian’s sports headline read ‘Mission Accomplished’ while the Telegraph stated ‘Bring On The Germans’ when in actual fact, the team played Slovenia and the result was only 1-0.
The promise of the forthcoming England vs. Germany match has ensured that the victory over Slovenia and the draws in the earlier group games are nothing but a hazy memory as the English press fill the public with promises – The Daily Express’ headline was ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. Forget the team’s inability to ease to the top of their group, the media – and therefore much of the public too – have a distinct tunnel vision for the final on July 11th.
With a single victory in the opening stage of the tournament, this confidence couldn’t possibly be generated by the results. Rather, it is a product of the media, who have the ability to incite a crowd mentality of support and patriotism.
Yes, there are hyperboles aplenty and an exaggerated historical context to the match (the wounds of English defeat to Germany at Euro ’96 and the 1990 World Cup will never heal) but this illustrates the ability of the media to control our perception of a situation, rather than draw our own logical conclusions.
The power of what we see in the media is that it can either raise or crush our spirits, dependent on the angle it chooses to take. The question now is which came first, the support or the fans?
Photo by Stephen Depolo
Leave a Reply