Sport, Twitter Hashtags, and the Public Sphere: A Qualitative Test of the Phenomenon Through a Curt Schilling Case Study

Abstract

Popular social media platforms have faced recent criticism because of the tendency for users to exhibit strongly negative behaviors, threatening the open, prodemocratic discourse that proponents believe was made possible when social media sites first gained widespread adoption a decade ago. A conceptual model suggests that the microblogging site Twitter, and especially sport-themed debate through hashtags, can still realize these ideals. Analyzing a dataset of tweets about the firing of former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling by ESPN on April 20, 2016, as well as a qualitative questionnaire given to the users of the hashtag, this study attempted to ascertain how closely the discourse comes to realizing the ideal of the Habermasian public sphere. The findings demonstrate that although users draw value from participation in the discussion, they are less inclined to desire interaction with other hashtag users, particularly those who disagree with them. This suggests that Twitter hashtags provide an open forum that approaches the participatory requirement of the public sphere, but the lack of back-and-forth engagement suggests the medium is not ideal for the generation of deliberative public opinion.

Sports celebrity personality and purchase intention: the role of endorser-brand congruence, brand credibility and brand image transfer

“…Else, using any sports celebrity in a marketing campaign is a risky endeavor to promote a commercial brand. Nowadays, the connection between a celebrity player and fans is closer than ever as fans are able to follow easily the normal day-to-day activities of their favorite player via social media (Frederick et al, 2012;O'Hallarn et al, 2018). Fans are keen to judge the attitudes and behaviors of their favorite celebrity player on the basis of their different personality attributes such as celebrity credibility, likability, trustworthiness, attractiveness and expertise level.…”

A Scoping Review of Research on Online Hate and Sport

“…Many sports subcultures foster an atmosphere in which degrees of antagonistic ‘banter’ are deemed more or less acceptable (Duncan, 2019). Furthermore, proponents of social media favour their capacity to contribute to a more vibrant public sphere (O’Hallarn et al, 2018; O’Hallarn et al, 2019); arguments which further complicate notions of moderation and censorship in online communication.…”

“…One explanation for these differences was the parent or subject discipline. Publications in the fields of marketing and business focused on internal solutions from and for sports organisations and social media platforms (e.g., O’Hallarn et al, 2018; O’Hallarn et al, 2019; Sveinson & Hoeber, 2020) while others in humanities fields such as sociology and communications framed their arguments more in relation to policy makers and/or the wider society. Examples of these varied approaches included calls for more rigorous and nuanced training for media professionals with regard to racism (Kilvington, 2021b), the need for sports teams to provide social media education and training to players (Kilvington & Price, 2019; Sanderson et al, 2020), recommendations for sports authorities to engage with fan groups on fighting stereotypes and prejudice (Millward, 2008), the need for greater transparency in social media censorship guidelines (Matamoros-Fernandez, 2017), calls for the introduction of anti-racist workshops into secondary education that are rooted in sports-based case studies (Merga & Booth, 2017) and appeals for sporting organisations to take a more active role in maintaining the mental health of athletes (Oshiro et al, 2020).…”

Habitually Scrolling: An Examination Into How Sport Consumers Use Social Media

“…Sport communication scholarship indicates that fans are less likely to engage with hashtags (O'Hallarn et al, 2018). Rather, sport fans tend to lurk on social media, in lieu of actively posting (Walker et al, 2017).…”