Virtual Collectivity through Second Screen: Chinese Fans’ WeChat Use in Televised Spectatorship of European Football

This article explores Chinese fans’ use of WeChat in the televised spectatorship of European football. Drawing on the data from in-depth interviews and participant observations, I demonstrate how WeChat as a second screen affords a form of virtual collectivity among fans that transforms the individualized and rational viewing of television football. In particular, this virtual collectivity normalizes the privacy and propriety of emotional expressions and in turn refrains intimacy and sense of community among fans of the same club. I also argue that WeChat draws Chinese fans to this virtual collectivity during public game-viewing in real life, which disrupts the potential face-to-face interactions and solidarity among the onsite fans. This case offers implications for the role of second screens in the glocalization of sports consumption in reforming China.