Speakers
Description
Advocacy in sport is staged as a strong commitment to protect the most vulnerable. Because of their noble objectives in favor of athletes, advocates leave little room for criticism. However, this communication aims at showing that proclaiming oneself as a spokesperson can also be a way of dispossessing groups of their voice and appropriating power. The spokesperson can indeed rely on a community to gain credibility and establish himself as a legitimate actor within the sporting field.
This research analyzes the discourses of Global Athlete. This organization was founded in 2019 after the Russian doping scandal and claims to be committed to “lead positive change across the world of sport” and to empower athletes. The research analyzes Global Athlete’s strategy to become the athletes’ advocate. The theoretical approach is based on an analysis of language as a resource of power by crossing P. Bourdieu's approaches of field and capital and Alexander's cultural sociology which is interested in the performative dimensions of language. We use a content analysis of Global Athlete communication (website, Twitter, Instagram, observation during conferences and symposium) and observe its reception in the media and on social networks. Our research hypothesis is that this advocacy is an instrumentalization of athletes' voices that serves (1) a legitimization strategy, (2) a quest for power within the sports field, (3) and the wider geopolitical dimensions at play in sport.
