6–10 Jun 2022
Tübingen
Europe/Berlin timezone

Vulnerability of Professional Athletes on Social Media. An Analysis on 2021 UEFA Champions League Final

Speakers

Camille Clausse-Pujo Nicolas Moreau Dominic Malcolm Ramon Spaaij

Description

Thierry Henry, former Arsenal Football Club star player, has stirred up the social media world when he announced on March 26th, 2021, on his now-deleted Twitter account, that he was quitting all social media, as “The sheer volume of racism, bullying and resulting in mental torture to individuals is too toxic to ignore.” Though English Premier League clubs engaged in awareness-raising campaigns, new insecurities targeting the athletes’ identities are growing from the rise of social media and online interactions. This study examines the comments posted by users on the Instagram’s accounts of four professional football players immediately after their team (Manchester City) lost the 2021 UEFA Champions League final. Using the lens of disruption of athletic identity (Hickey & Roderick, 2017), we are pointing out that cyberviolence can deeply affect athletes and potentially spark identity dilemmas. We used Kavanagh & Jones’ typology of virtual maltreatment (2014) to isolate the comments collected into four categories: virtual emotional maltreatment, virtual discriminatory maltreatment, virtual physical maltreatment, and virtual sexual maltreatment. The two categories with the highest proportions of comments were virtual emotional and discriminatory maltreatments, including significant racist online abuse. Moreover, athletes with greater media exposure or higher number of followers tend to be more targeted. This methodology and the results show that online abuse towards high-profile athletes is a significant social problem, potentially provoking instant damage and altering their sense of self. Sports institutions and social media companies must implement policies of prevention, risk reduction and control to better protect athletes.

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