ABSTRACT
When John R. Mitrano (1999) investigated the meanings that fans involved in an online chat group read into the relocation of the Hartford Whalers hockey franchise, his study and others started a new era – a digital era – in physical cultural studies (PCS). Scholars 1 working in this digital era have used a variety of terms (e.g. new media, digital media) and definitions to describe the ubiquitous digital media phenomenon. This chapter defines digital media as LaVoi and Calhoun (2014: 321) proposed: ‘forms of media content that combine and integrate data, text, sound and images of all kinds, are stored in digital formats; and are increasingly distributed through networks [the most obvious of which, and representing the focus of this chapter is the Internet]’, with the added stipulation that they promote interactivity and group-forming. Examples include websites, blogs and social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and MySpace. From cradle to grave, digital technologies have become central to people’s informational and social worlds (Lupton, 2012). Everyday life has become increasingly digitally technologically mediated and this increased mediation has had a remarkable impact on physical cultural communities (Leonard, 2009; Hutchins and Rowe, 2012). Given the revolutionary impact these technologies are having on people’s lives, in order to understand contemporary physical culture, it is essential that PCS scholars understand digital culture.
