There’s an interesting passage in Margaret Archer’s book on agency which argues for an active view of spectating and its status as a learned achievement attained through personal engagement:
Spectating is far from being a passive activity, as is evident at football matches, but is equally the case at music concerts, art exhibitions and chess tournaments. It demands its own tacit knowledge (often vocally shared with all and sundry), and its own emotional involvement. Spectating is itself a skilled achievement, involving an appreciation of what the task requires in terms of competence. The spectator reverberates, as does the play, to the emotional commentary on performative success or failure (together with gradations between them). Audiences display bodily tension, alongside players and conductors, as they anticipate crucial movements or moments and express their emotional satisfaction/dissatisfaction in applause and booing. In the same way too, dissatisfaction is related to cessation (either by walking out after the ‘first half’ or by progressively declining attendance) and satisfaction is related to increasing competence (through appreciation classes, buying specialist magazines, private practice with CDs, videos, and the Internet, as well as through increasing attendance itself).
Margaret Archer, Being Human, Pg 214
Mark Carrigan 