Locating Intermediality: Socialization by Communication and Consumption in the Popular Cultural Third Places of the Music Club and Football Stadium

Based on two different case studies in the realm of popular culture, my contribution will clarify the mechanisms involved in the (symbolic) production and consumption of space. The music club and the soccer stadium function much in the same way, as interfaces between producers and consumers of places, prompting “pro-sumption of space” (Raumprosumenten). A loss of function in such “third places” cannot be linked to the transition from informal cellar clubs to (soberly designed) regional discos outside the city – or from the national-league stadium to the World Cup arena (also outside the city). Nor can it be attributed to the mediatization of these spaces by technology. On the contrary, we find an exponentiation of what third places had always already been, spaces of ”intermediality” (between work and leisure, between seriousness and play, between young people and adults). In the World Cup stadium, unique events, experiences and communicative propensities are produced in a highly consistent manner by means of communication on different levels in series. In such cases, the spectators in the stadium, just like visitors to music clubs, rarely behave as passive consumers of what is staged, yet both groups contribute by their presence and symbolic activity to the success of such productions in the stadium and the club.