The power of popular publicity: new social media and the affective dynamics of the sport racism scandal

Abstract

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Abstract: Sociologists have tended to take insufficient account of the importance of emotions to the social power of the institution of media, particularly as altered by the emergence of social media in the current media ecology. This paper compensates for this neglect by examining the effect of social media on the public reception of the 2011 Sepp Blatter racism scandal and other 'race-related' media scandals in the UK. In proposing media scandals' wider sociological significance regarding the dynamic, multi-accented relationships between emotions and power, it analyses how England's prevailing climate of 'postcolonial guilt' was reinforced and conveyed through social media networks. Permanent

Theorizing the form and impact of sport scandals

“…Inevitably, this raises questions on interpersonal and organizational levels about the power to resist or change that other studies on sport scandals have explored (Doigde, 2018;Tak et al 2018;Baker & Rowe, 2013). The argument is that our theoretical elaboration can be enriched by a future dimension on power, which paves the way for organizational and interpersonal studies of how to manage and cope with sport scandals.…”

“…Mass media attention is a precondition for both types of sport scandals to develop into scandals. However, we propose that due to the innate relationship between celebrities/high profile figures and scandals (Rowe, 1997), and the intertwinement of emotions and social media (Baker and Rowe, 2013) scandals of charismatic failure will persist in mass media contrary to scandals of bureaucratic fallacy. The recent study by Ludwig and Oelrichs, based on German media coverage of scandals (Ludwig and Oelrichs, 2020), concludes that high celebrity status results in a higher number of articles per case compared to scandals involving less known celebrities.…”

“…It also underlines the predominant emphasis on investigating the impact and effect of scandals rather than elaborating theoretically on scandals as social and cultural phenomena. Baker and Rowe (2013), in their study of the Sepp Blatter racism scandal, deviate from this pattern by outlining how power and emotions are intertwined with new social media, showing how this unique feature of modern media ecology helps us understand why contemporary sport scandals accelerate with hitherto unseen ramifications in society. Recent attempts to develop typologies of scandals acknowledge that sport scandals cannot be viewed as uniform.…”

“…Scandals that score highly in terms of charismatic failure have a huge and enduring impact on the mass media, but not necessarily on political and legal systems. Individual athletes with charismatic features or stories attract mass media attention and evoke emotional responses on social media (Baker & Rowe, 2013). The Tonya Harding scandal led neither to new political orientations nor to new legislation.…”

“…Brown et al, 2013; Doidge, 2018): for instance, Rowe (1997) analyses sport scandals in relation to celebrity culture and the role of the sport star in post-modernity, and thus – more than 20 years ago – directed our attention to how mass media communicate scandals. More recently, Baker and Rowe (2013) elaborate on how social media intertwine with emotions to accelerate the momentum of scandals, while Tangen and Gils (2020) use the Therese Johaug scandal to conceptualize it as a modern tragedy.…”