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The ritual of tailgating is a staple of college football Saturdays, particularly for fans of teams in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Fan traditions help infuse pregame gatherings around the stadiums with team spirit, as fans frequently theme their food and drink to represent their chosen team. New social media platforms--particularly photo-sharing platforms such as Instagram--have taken tailgates to the virtual space. Through interviews with participants who partake in the phenomenon, this study sought to ascertain what fans of SEC teams gain fromthe process of social media participation. Utilizing the critical framework of symbolic interactionism, this exploratory study examines meaning attached to the ritual and symbolism of team-specific food and drink. By sharing pictures of food and drink with supporters of their favorite team, SEC fans create a virtual community, united by fan allegiance and food and drink fellowship, realizing personal benefits such as sharing nostalgia and developing a sense of community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a semiotic square to study placeway rituals, we theorize one particular sanctuary, a secular ritual we term vestaval--and specifically, its manifestation in the form of tailgating--as a site of popular communion. Vestaval demonstrates the power of consumption to stimulate social and civic engagement. We employ an ethnographic team methodology to describe and analyze the phenomenon. We theorize the eversion mechanism that animates vestaval and sets it apart from other social forms including spectacle, festival, and carnival well known to consumer research. We explore how vestaval turns the domestic world inside out and offers a template both for the temporary suspension and potential remaking of the social relations of market and polity. We detail a set of practices within four themes--location, construction, customization, and inhabitation--that enables the conversion of private space to public place and the creation of community from a confederacy of consumption encampments. These dynamics are presented as a Mobius strip to emphasize not only the simultaneity of stages, but also the constant sharing of energy. By examining how midwestern American tailgaters in a collegiate setting personalize public place and publicize personal place, we demonstrate how individuals negotiate two of the fundamental consumption ideologies of public space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors explore the formation of a new brand community to increase our understanding of the development of particular social networks within this overall new community. An ethnographic study was conducted among four tailgating groups of a new college team during its inaugural season. The method was chosen to gain insight into how individual consumers interacted with each other and how these early interactions contributed to the development of a brand community. To examine these interactions, social network theory was used to examine the relationships between the individuals within a larger group setting. Adopting this theoretical approach allowed the authors to observe that newly created groups follow the principles of scale-free networks, where some consumers act as leaders and others as followers. The implications for both highly committed leaders and noncommittal followers within each social network are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary argument of I Gridiron Gourmet i is that men who make an elaborate performance of tailgating - and they site numerous examples - do so to achieve and maintain "traditional gender constructs" (10) and, specifically, a form of masculinity that the authors take to mean being physically strong, highly competitive, mechanically capable, and dominant over women, children, and men who do not share those traits. The authors of I Gridiron Gourmet i are both professors of kinesiology, but their research interests have less to do with the study of human body movement, and more with human culture, especially the intersection of sport, gender, and food in America. [Extracted from the article]

Throughout North America, the open air public feasting and drinking that surrounds an athletic event, most commonly football, is labeled “tailgating.” In this article, we explore how consumers infuse their place-creating activity with a well-modulated aura of revelry that energizes tailgating without jeopardizing either its immediate or long-term viability. To an appreciable degree, tailgating is about celebrating and preserving the communal bond enkindled in the primal hearth. We characterize tailgating as a “ludic foodscape” in an attempt to capture the kinetic, multisensory backdrop and atmosphere of playful consumer creativity against which the revelry of feasting and drinking unfolds. Our study is located at the intersection of inquiries into foodscapes, brandscapes, and landscapes. Among the interpretive themes emerging from our ethnographic analysis, we have implicated three in particular in the generation and modulation of the revelry that distinguishes tailgating from some of its more bacchanalian cousins: cuisine, carnivalesque, and canalization. These themes can be understood as social regulators that literally govern tailgating, endowing it with just the right amount of license to give it a festive edge without resulting in too disruptive or dysfunctional an atmosphere. We unpack the three cogs in this mechanism and analyze their relevance to the atmosphere pervading the sites of tailgating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unsafe food handling behaviors are common among consumers, and, given the venue, individuals attending a tailgating event may be at risk for foodbome illness. The objective of this study was to measure the association between Health Belief Model variables and self-reported usual food handling behaviors in a convenience sample of men and women at a tailgate event. Participants (n = 128) completed validated subscales for self-reported food handling behaviors (i.e., cross-contamination, sanitation), perceived threat of foodborne illness (i.e.. perceived severity, perceived susceptibility), and safe food handling cues to action (i.e., media cues, educational cues). Perceived severity of foodbome illness was associated with safer behaviors related to sanitation (r = 0.40; P < 0.001) and cross-contamination (/- = 0.33; P = 0.001). Perceived severity of foodbome illness was also associated with exposure to safe food handling media cues (r=0.20; P = 0.027) but not with safe food handling educational cues. A large proportion of participants reported that they never or seldom (i) read newspaper or magazine articles about foodbome illness (65.6%); (ii) read brochures about safe ways to handle food (61.7%); (iii) see store displays that explain ways to handle food (51.6%); or (iv) read the "safe handling instructions" on packages of raw meat and poultry (46.9%). Perceived severity of foodbome illness was positively related to both dimensions of safe food handling as well as with safe food handling media cues. Except for the weak correlation between media cues and perceived severity, the relationships between safe food handling cues and perceived threat, as well as between safe food handling cues and behaviors, were nonsignificant. This finding may be due, in part, to the participants' overall low exposure to safe food handling cues. The overall results of this study reinforce the postulate that perceived severity of foodbome illness may influence food handling behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The transition from high school to college is a critical period for developing college drinking habits. Hazardous alcohol consumption increases during this period, as well as participation in drinking games, pregaming, and tailgating. All of these risky drinking practices are associated with higher levels of intoxication as well as an increased risk of alcohol-related problems. Objective: The current study aimed to evaluate pre-college predictors (personality, social norms, and beliefs reflecting the internalization of the college drinking culture [ICDC]) of estimated peak BAC (pBAC) reached during drinking games, pregaming, and tailgating, as well as pBAC and alcohol-related problems during the first 30 days of college. Methods: Participants ( n = 936) were incoming freshmen at a large university who completed a baseline assessment prior to college matriculation and a follow-up assessment after they had been on campus for 30 days. Results: Using path analysis, ICDC was significantly associated with pBAC reached during the three risky drinking practices. ICDC had an indirect effect on both pBAC and alcohol-related problems via pBAC from drinking games, pregaming, and tailgating. Hopelessness and sensation seeking were significantly related to alcohol use outcomes. Conclusion: Precollege perceptions of the college drinking culture are a stronger predictor of subsequent alcohol use than social norms. Interventions that target these beliefs may reduce peak intoxication and associated harms experienced during the first 30 days of college. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Little attention has been directed toward potential differential effects of the various contexts in which parents model alcohol use. The present study examined college football tailgating as a potential context in which parental modeling may be more or less risky. 290 college freshmen were assessed for perceptions of their parents’ drinking and tailgating behaviors, individual alcohol use and consequences. Hierarchical multiple regressions were performed and results revealed that parental tailgating accounted for a significant increase in the variance explained in each of the student drinking measures. Parental drunkenness at tailgates predicted college student drinking and negative consequences, over and above the influence of typical parental heavy episodic drinking. The specific context in which students perceive their parents as drinking heavily may impact their own drinking. Tailgating at sporting events appears to be one such context where students perceive alcohol behaviors which they later model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Tailgating is becoming America's fastest growing “sport,” with Americans spending more money every year to create the ultimate tailgating experience. This study investigates the culinary aspects and nutritional quality of tailgating food items. The analysis focused on nutritional content and quality as well as visual acceptability of physical appearance of foods in respect to gender differences. A better understanding of tailgaters' food priorities will ultimately help foodservice providers offer more efficient ways of marketing for the increasing popularity of tailgating. Tailgating foods and other related paraphernalia could be marketed directly to potential customers who, based on this study, are most interested in including these products in their tailgates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the fall of 2004, a midwestern public university changed its tailgating policy from one that did not allow alcohol consumption to one that did. Objective, Participants, and Methods: The authors surveyed students before and after the policy change to measure consumption, problems, perceptions of peer consumption, and reported game attendance. Results: Results showed no change in drinking quantities or prevalence of problems after the policy change; however, there was an increase in students' misperceptions, with students overestimating drinking quantities and the number of students who drank while tailgating. Last, students' predictions about their game attendance if alcohol was allowed were higher than their reported attendance after the policy change. Conclusions: Conclusions suggest that although drinking quantities may not be influenced by policies at tailgating events, misperceptions may be influenced. Administrators should note that the policy did not affect students' self-reported game attendance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research ( Takaku, 2001; Takaku, Weiner, & Ohbuchi, 2001 ) tested and supported the hypothesis that injured parties' motivation to forgive their wrongdoers could be enhanced through inducing hypocrisy-dissonance by making the injured parties aware of their own past wrongdoing. The present study tested and supported the model's applicability to people's road-rage experiences by showing that individuals who were aware of their own past reckless driving generated more hypocrisy-induced dissonance, more positive attributions, and less negative emotional reactions than individuals who were not aware of their own past reckless driving. Implications for future research and possible applications of the model in reducing road rage are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the analysis of risk management policies for following activities at chosen National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Games in the U.S. Universities seem to be not eager to impose safety measures on tailgate parties. The basic liabilities of the organization sponsoring tailgating activities and how risk management strategies may assist in creating and maintaining a safe environment for patrons attending athletic contests.