Us and Them

Abstract

Analyzing media coverage of the men’s World Cup of soccer, this article explores the characterization of the United States relationship to this event as a form of national myth making. American journalists emphasized to their readers that the importance and meaning of the tournament domestically paled in comparison to that found outside its borders. Previous scholars have used the concept of “American exceptionalism” to interpret this type of media narrative as a reflection of the sport’s low cultural valence. Alternatively, the author argues that this characterization constitutes a form of “boundary-work” wherein American national identity could be specified in more concrete terms by representing the United States as both internally unified and different from all other nations through its ambivalence toward soccer.