The role of English in the communication of Belgian professional football clubs on social media

Details

Supervisors

De Cock, Sylvie

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en communication multilingue, à finalité spécialisée: langues des affaires

Abstract

This dissertation aims to explain and demonstrate the importance of English in today's communication of Belgian football clubs on social media. Football is one of the one most popular sport in the world. Even in Belgium it is a popular sport. Furthermore, there are several Belgian teams, which are well-known in Europe. All these clubs have official accounts on social networks. The purpose of having social media accounts is to communicate with their fans but also to promote the club. Communicating via social media is a good way to reach a wide audience because they have become an essential communication tool in today's communication and very popular in today's society. However, there are several linguistic communities in Belgium. The problem for Belgian football clubs is to strike a balance in their communication between these linguistic communities. English then appears to be the solution to the problem because it is one of the most spoken languages in the world. It is even considered as the international language. But it's not that easy, because there are many elements involved. This study is based on 3 different analyses which are: a collection of publications on Anderlecht-, Club Brugge-, and Standard de Liège's social media, a questionnaire dedicated to football fans who follow Belgian football clubs on social media and two semi-structured interviews with communication professionals.