International Review for the Sociology of Sport, Ahead of Print.
Drawing on Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, this study sheds light on sports nationalism and traces changes in the media's discursive construction of the Korean national football team over time by analyzing news articles from three different World Cups. Korean sports nationalism has evolved in complex ways and has been influenced by a combination of factors, including the colonial experience, initiatives by the former military government, the hosting of mega-sporting events, local professional leagues, and the globalization of athletes on the world stage. Given the multifaceted nature of Korean sports nationalism, this study aims to examine how it has changed in response to social transformations, particularly the impact of neoliberal globalization. The findings reveal that sports nationalism is often manifested in the terms of “fighting spirit” or “sacrifice” as a core national trait. However, it increasingly incorporates and embraces a new neoliberal meritocratic culture and subjectivity that foregrounds individual success on the world stage as a new form of nationalism in an era of accelerating globalized and commodified sports elitism.