Militarization of Football Reporting in Kenyan Newspapers

Abstract

Football is considered a chief global entertainment sport. Millions of soccer fans throng football stadiums to watch the live matches while others are always glued to the television and radio sets whenever their teams are playing. Owing to the modern technology, many others are able to follow their teams via internet. The print media has always played a significant role in dissemination of football news around the world. The language of football reporting is one of the most entertaining and creative literary pieces and in order to highlight the reality of football; in and out of the pitch, many journalists heavily borrow from other domains such as war and military conflict. Using the Conceptual Metaphor theory the study examined the use of military vocabulary in the reporting of football news in Kenyan newspapers with an aim of describing the militaristic aspects of the reportage. Judgmental sampling was used to select thematically related articles from two major newspapers in Kenya, „The Daily Nation‟ and „The Standard‟. Results revealed that there is extensive use of creative language in football news reporting in Kenya through the use of military or war metaphors. Keywords: Football Reporting, Militarization.