Research On The Interaction Rituals Of Tennis Fans

Combining the elements and results of the interactive ritual chain model proposed by Collins,this paper tests the quality of the interactive rituals of tennis fans in China,in order to answer the question of how interactive ritual can make tennis fans maintain their enthusiasm.The paper finds that,compared with the physical presence of sports fans emphasized by Collins,virtual presence of mediated participation has become the mainstream of tennis fans.However,the paper also emphasizes that non-mediated participation is still the first choice of tennis fans,and the emotional experience of physical presence is far from comparable to the virtual world.The author discusses Collins’ a priori statement about sports fans in the book.Collins’ discussion of sports fans is always confined to the "stadium" environment.Sports competitions gather sports fans into a community that has "no other purpose" than the peak of "ritual emotion" and cannot go beyond the symbolic setting of the immediate situation.This is clearly inconsistent with the tennis fan behavior examined in this paper.Therefore,this paper further explores the daily ritual participation of tennis fans and finds out the fundamental reason for its "stickiness"--situation continuation and symbol production: After the collective symbol generated in the spectator ritual process,tennis fans will leave the stadium situation in the spectator ritual and continue the tennis fans’ ritual situation into their daily life through rituals such as sharing,imitation,wearing and creation,so that they can generate emotional energy(EE)in a wider context and achieve the same sense of unity as in the stadium environment.By examining the results of the rituals,I criticized the undesirable phenomena of tennis fans found in the participative observation and interview,and proposed that tennis fans should be vigilant against the extreme hero worship and exclude the pollution of the fans’ environment by those who violate the ritual objectives,so as to protect the "ecological environment" of tennis fans to experience successful interactive rituals.