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Rinkside Tweeting:
A Foucauldian Understanding of
Changing Power Relations in the National Hockey League

Presented by Naila Jinnah

Macintosh Conference
Queen’s University
January 22, 2011

Say what?
• How does Foucault’s understanding of power
apply to the off-ice life of NHL players?

• Foucault and sport usually about discipline or
technologies of self in development of high-
performance athletes

• What happens when different power groups
start using social media tools like Twitter?
– Potential motivations & goals

About Twitter

• 140-character public status updates (tweets)
• May include basic text and links or pics and vids using tools
• Users can subscribe to others’ feeds  followers
• Can interact by replying, forwarding (retweeting), etc
• Public feeds accessible online to non-Twitter users UNLESS
user makes feed private to authorised users only

About Foucault & Power
• Early work  mechanisms of surveillance, punishment
and resistance:
– repressive power
– sovereign power
– disciplinary society
• Power as positive and productive: resistance forms
identities, knowledge & truth
• Later work technologies of self:
– Aesthetics of self: Voluntary rules of conduct that
one imposes on self
– Ethics: How the individual sees self as a moral
subject
• Individuals subject to normalizing discourses produced
by dominant power groups and disciplinary power

More Foucault & Power
• Power is relational, omnipresent, mutable
• NOT possession: exerting power is manifestation
• Those subjected to power must possess some
degree of freedom or choice resistance
• Power structures are open to negotiation
• Resistance can eventually create shifts at societal
levels  may cause emergence of new voices and
new dominant power groups within existing
relations in the long run

Research Questions
• Why do groups exert power on each other?
– Traditional media
– Official league & team representatives
– Athletes
– Fans
– Related groups: player agents, NHLPA, citizen media
• How do they exert this power?
• What kind of power is exerted?

Power relations in the NHL pre-Twitter

The NHL

Traditional Media Fans
League

Team Players

Legend
Agents/ One-way power
NHLPA Minimal one-way power
Balanced two-way power
Imbalanced two-way power

Traditional media = intermediary
• Symbiotic relationship between media & sport
– Economics: sport sells, media creates fans
– Dissemination of normalising discourses
– Mutual power struggle: disciplinary power
• Players interact with fans through media only
• Media represents global fan reaction
• Fans’ voice limited: via media, by chance, or $
• Teams/league talks to fans through media only

Players and Power
• No athletes, no sport!
• Power exists in three qualities
– Origin
– Basic nature
– Manifestation
• NHL values continually perpetuated
– Sovereign, paternalistic power
– Disciplinary, normalising power
• Athletes: Docile Bodies and labourers
• Surveillance tactics:
– Hierarchical observation
– Timetables
– Systems of rank

Counter-Power / Resistance
• Athletes are not shaped to deal non-sport aspects:
– NHLPA: player’s union to deal with business/labour
– Agents: deal with financial & well-being of clients
• Rise & fall of World Hockey Association (1972-79)
also helped athletes resist to NHL power
• Lifespan of average successful NHL career: 5 years
• Resisting media, league not a smart choice
• Success through technologies of self: better self
and maximize post career opportunities
• No “true self” but reconstruction of identities by
challenging traditional normalising discourse

Athletes + Power = Illusion

• Power only present in perpetuation
of discourses that identify athletes
as heroes
• Only true power exerted on other
athletes:
– Veterans initiating rookies to NHL life
– Competition for same positions on
team
• Power struggles through resistance
– NHL + athletes work together towards
new “normal”

NHL’s new strategies & tactics
• NHL monopoly on pro hockey market in NA
– Talent, teams, media interest, discourse
• From sovereign power to art of government
– BEFORE: Manage territory + constituents (athletes)
– NOW:
“the population [or athlete] is the subject of needs, of aspirations, but it
is also the object in the hands of the government [league], aware, vis-a-
vis the government [league], of what it wants, but ignorant of what is
being done to it.”
-Foucault in Governmentality (p. 99)
In The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality, with two lectures by
and an interview with Michel Foucault. (1991)

• Still sovereign & disciplinary power + new strategies &
tactics mean NHL has more ways of governing athletes

NHL as cartel
LEAGUE (STATE) TEAMS (INSTITUTION)
• Regulates teams so they act in • Extension of league’s power
the league’s interest • Team regulations based on
• Restricts access for athletes league-wide guidance
• Divides power across markets • micro power:
• MACRO power: – Day-to-day operations
– Master schedule – Local PR/communications
– League-wide PR/communications
– Local promotion & events only
– Discipline to control athlete
– Game day information
actions that don’t fit in discourse
– Takes control of local league-wide
– Everyday discipline of athletes
events with major marketing
potential: ASG, Draft, Playoffs

Power relations in the NHL post-Twitter

The NHL

League Traditional Media Fans

Team Players Citizen Media

Agents/
NHLPA Legend
One-way power
Minimal one-way power
Balanced two-way power
Imbalanced two-way power

Twitter = new intermediary
• NHL no longer needs traditional media to
disseminate info on its behalf with Internet
• Slighted power groups now have a voice
• More direct communication between groups
• Twitter as tool is NOT automatically liberating
– Reduces space & increases speed of
communications between different groups
• Resistance doesn’t modify power relations but
knowledge produced by resistance

Knowledge leads to power
• Power relations: ways in which knowledge circulates
and functions + its relation to power
• Power & knowledge linked in discourse
– Daily relations between people produce society
– Power & knowledge can’t exist without each other
– Knowledge produced by normalising, disciplinary methods
• Athletes contribute to discourse by producing and
dispersing their own knowledge
• Open, non-discriminatory platform: athletes can
completely control their own communications
• Still discipline & surveillance by:
– agent, team, league, mainstream media reporters, fans

PANOPTIC surveillance
• Panopticon based on Bentham’s
prison design
– groups cells around watch tower
• Surveillance by:
– Agents (paternalistic, disciplinary)
– Team & League (pat & disc)
– Mainstream media reporters
– Fans
• Panoptic gaze:
– Potential observation
– Invisibility of examination
• Twitter is public so illusion of
surveillance should encourage Bentham’s Panopticon
self-discipline + filtering from prisoner’s POV

The case of @PaulBizNasty
• @PaulBizNasty known for colourful
trash talking on and off the ice
• Tweets: Kovalchuk is “communist”
– In private context: no discipline
– Not acceptable outside hockey microcosm
• Account deleted (at agent’s suggestion)
• New @BizNasty2point0 is “filtered”
– No explanation for surveillance procedure Paul Bissonnette
(Phoenix Coyotes)
• Players practice technologies of the self
NHL has no official
– Personal branding for post-playing career social media policy or
– Limited counter-discursive content guide … YET!

The rise of the sports celebrity
• Increased personal life & lifestyle info
– From role models to commodities
– Famous for being famous (on-ice vs. off-ice)
– Lifestyle information to be consumed
• Superstars not on Twitter: docile bodies
• Docile bodies increase global revenue
– Cross-promotional potential
• Professional athlete identity in flux
– New demands, responsibilities &
expectations because of social media:
constant pressure (instant gratification)
– Constant observation by fans (info society)
– Construction of star brand by fans

The fall of the sports celebrity
• Athletes elevated to iconic status but rarely live
up to expectations: illusion of power
– Fame comes at a price
– From heroes to zeroes via media (old, new, social)
– Fans can easily take back players’ power
• Fans live vicariously through athletes (+ power)
– Players’ personal failure is betrayal for fans
– Player invites fans into his heart and mind
– Fan-athlete connection depends on fandom levels

But what about the fans?
• As player salaries increased, personal fan connections decreased
• Social media attempts to bridge the gap
– Include fans in decision-making process at NHL level
– Fans benefit from Twitter’s speed and access
– NHL still controls power relationship: knowledge
• How fans connect to sport:
– Sports stars (not just players, but teams as a whole)
– Geographic places (but hometown heroes constructed)
– Demographic & lifestyle levels
• Social media creates communities outside of geography
– Long-distance fans make be tempted to travel to a home game
– Fan-allegiances outside traditional hometown affiliations
• Fans likely to increase consumption due to closer connection
– Fan empowerment leads to NHL’s empowerment: economics

How are fans empowered?
• More information sources increase fan empowerment
– Citizen media fill gap left by traditional media constraints
– Agents fill gap left in creation of player identities
• Accessories to athlete’s use of technologies of self
• Agents exert liberal power over athletes
• Illusion of empowerment through “resistance” to
sovereign power of traditional media and NHL by
accessing information through other sources
• Twitter as confessional tool for fans & athletes
– Direct player interaction/pressure
– Governance of athlete behaviour

#DanEllisProblems
• @33dellis less controversial than BizNasty
• Complained about precautionary 18% escrow
paycheck deduction
– “I can honestly say that I am more stressed about money
now than when I was in college”
– Valid in pro hockey microcosm but not public setting
– Deleted account after personal and professional fan backlash
• Fans exercised power to resist “hero”
discourse:
– Panoptic surveillance to detect tweet
– Confessional power to alert media/league
Dan Ellis
– Disciplinary tactics to punish Ellis’ resistance,
(Tampa Bay Lightning)
confessional power, and technologies of self
• Fan’s freedom to respond was empowering Fans always crave
• Fan’s knowledge production increased more behind the
traditional power’s influence scenes information

Overall Twitter effect
• NHL teams and league allow fans’ illusion of power
– Fans sound off directly to NHL through Twitter
– Reinforces NHL’s voice as authentic
– Additional openings to perpetuate normalising discourses
• NHL teams need to adapt or lose influence
• Fans want to know athletes & athletes want to know fans
• Twitter limits fans’ fear of being perceived as stalkers
• NHL and athletes don’t interact on Twitter: authority
– Team wants to prove it still controls conversations involving it
– Players want to distance themselves from professional life
– Commodification and lack of player loyalty as factors
• Players tweet amongst themselves: personal, casual & playful
• NHL players accountable for their tweets
– Surveillance and disciplinary measures by:
• Players, League, Team, Themselves

Shifts in balance of power: en bref
• Fans no longer afraid to exert direct influence on
their role models: normalised celebrity interaction
• Twitter is new intermediary not new power group:
– Replaces traditional media in pro sports landscape
– Reduces traditional power’s influence and increases
marginalized voices’ influence in consumer societies
– Allows for different manifestations of power
• Problematisation of self through resistance of role
in traditional structure shifts balance of power:
– Fans and athletes embrace Twitter and empower
themselves to start countering traditional discourses
created by NHL & media

In conclusion…
• Power acquired by NHL fans & players illusionary:
– Any interaction with pro hockey increases NHL’s power, even
resistance
– Twitter increases NHL’s knowledge of audience & development of
new strategies for perpetuating normalising discourses
– Professional athletes need league to survive and league needs
labourers
– Rise of celebrity culture via Twitter empowers athletes but illusion of
players as powerful can shatter quickly
• Teams are only marginally influential and only locally
• Influence of normalising discourses is generational so resisting
dominant power groups is a long-term process
• Foucauldian understanding of power relations in NHL details
how fans & athletes can steadily increase influence over NHL
by using interactive tools like Twitter
– Interesting perspective for power relationship analyses in
sports management, sports psychology and sociology of sport

Thanks for your
attention throughout
my presentation! 

QUESTIONS?

Email me: njinnah@gmail.com
Tweet me: @NailaJ

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