How Do Professional Sports Clubs Become City Symbols in the Social Media Era

HU Jiashu; XIANG Huiyu; WEI zimu; LIU Siqi

doi:10.14036/j.cnki.cn11-4513.2026.03.003

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Journal of Capital University of Physical Education and Sports ›› 2026, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (3) : 257-269. DOI: 10.14036/j.cnki.cn11-4513.2026.03.003

Special Features/Professional Sports

How Do Professional Sports Clubs Become City Symbols in the Social Media Era

HU Jiashu ¹^,² ,
XIANG Huiyu ¹ ,
WEI zimu ¹ ,
LIU Siqi ³

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Abstract

How a professional sports club evolves from a competitive organization into a city symbol is an important issue at the intersection of urban culture and sport governance. Adopting a discourse analysis perspective, this article proposes an analytical framework of three discourse mechanisms-embedding, symbolization, and identification-and applies it to the case of Shanghai Shenhua Football Club, drawing on a content analysis of valid texts from the Weibo platform. The findings are as follows: (1) The embedding mechanism addresses how the club enters urban public discourse. The club achieves discursive embedding through topic-selective city associations and bridging nodes, exhibiting a phased upward trend over the study period. (2) The symbolization mechanism addresses how the club is invested with urban emotions and values. Three types of urban narratives-belonging, pride, and place-endow the club with symbolic meaning, underpinned by a high degree of emotional engagement. (3) The identification mechanism addresses how symbolic meaning translates into urban identity. Through first-person pronouns and spatial markers such as “home ground,” the public enacts identity work in everyday language, lending the symbolic relationship enduring social-psychological support. The three discourse mechanisms reinforce one another, jointly accounting for the discursive process through which the club becomes a city symbol. The club’s capacity for such symbolic production, this article argues, derives from its simultaneous fulfillment of three conditions: high frequency, high emotionality, and high locality. On this basis, the article offers recommendations for strengthening club-city relations.

Key words

professional sports club / city symbol / public discourse / Shanghai Shenhua

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HU Jiashu , XIANG Huiyu , WEI zimu , et al. How Do Professional Sports Clubs Become City Symbols in the Social Media Era[J]. Journal of Capital University of Physical Education and Sports. 2026, 38(3): 257-269 https://doi.org/10.14036/j.cnki.cn11-4513.2026.03.003

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