Culture, Sport knowledge and Professional conscience. The Chilean football case through the Estadio magazine (1940-1962)

Abstract

This article addresses the emergence and development of cultural symbolisms as a consequence of the progress of professional football in Chile between 1940 and 1962. This period marked by the transition from amateur football to the professional practice of the sport implied the development of cultural elements that became part of the popular culture of Chile in the middle of the XXth century. Part of the process described before is the emergence of the notions of “professional conscience” and “sportive culture” as principles that were acquiring meaning that circulated in mass-reach media. Additionally, the document postulates that during this period, a series of cultural meanings were generated and became part of popular culture. This phenomenon was based on the presence of those cultural meanings in multiple articles, opinion columns, and debates published by the “Estadio” magazine, producing new forms of expression, identities, and ways of understanding the sport in the everyday life.