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In October 2021, National Basketball Association player Kyrie Irving was banned from competing for the Brooklyn Nets because of his resistance to being vaccinated for COVID-19. Two months later, the Nets softened that stance and allowed Irving to participate in road games. This study examines two prongs of the social media response to Irving's vaccination status. A total of 12,000 posts were collected from the U.S.-based Twitter (now known as X; 6,000) and the Chinese-based Weibo (6,000), covering the first week of coverage of Irving and the Nets' announcement. Results showed that Hofstede's cultural dimensions help explain the theme differences, with Twitter's comments reflecting more individualistic notions and lower power distance than Weibo. Moreover, Twitter users focused more on opinion-based expression themes, while Weibo users avoided commenting on the COVID-19 policy. These findings contribute to the literature by identifying the role culture plays in people's response to a social issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing framing theory, the present study examined gender differences in Iranian state-run media and alternative media portrayals of elite athlete emigration. By analyzing 704 online news articles published between 2007 and 2022 and comparing gender disparities, the study provides insights into the framing narratives used by a nation without a free press to undermine gender equity and national dialogues about sport. The study determined that male athletes received disproportionally high framing coverage over time, but this gender imbalance shifted to the inverse in 2020. This can be attributed to a sudden influx of prominent female athletes emigrating from Iran to avoid political persecution. Study findings also uncovered a stark contrast in the prominence of frames attributed to each gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During a 2018 Amazon Prime simulcast alongside the Fox broadcast announced by Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, Hannah Storm and Andrea Kremer became the first all-female broadcast team for a National Football League game. Utilizing a national sample of 415 subjects, a four-cell post-test-only experimental design of the on-air commentary was utilized to examine perceptions of announcer credibility. Incorporating social identity theory, findings reveal women sportscasters were deemed credible, but if one affiliated with a presumed sporting out-group (female and non-White fans), this was not the case. Highly identified sport fans indicated a shift toward acceptance of all-female announcers of all-male sporting events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the need for greater diversity and global perspectives in the research and scholarship published in the journal Communication & Sport. The authors acknowledge that the majority of submissions and accepted manuscripts come from scholars in North America, but emphasize the importance of including perspectives from scholars in other regions of the world. They argue that a global lens is necessary to fully understand communication phenomena in the context of sport, as North America represents a small proportion of the world's population and many popular sports have their roots outside the U.S. The authors express a commitment to inclusivity and diversification of perspectives in future publications. [Extracted from the article]

This study incorporates moral panics as a lens for investigating discussions in US news reports and on social media surrounding anti-transgender youth sports legislation. A total of 210 newspaper articles and 6,405 Twitter posts from January 2022 through November 2022 were analyzed to highlight the proportion of content that incorporated moral panic elements of concern, hostility, consensus, and disproportionality within the discussion. While the frames advanced on the two platforms largely mirrored one another, social media posts were more likely to incorporate aspects of moral panic escalation (concern and hostility) than were news reports. Escalation elements stayed high on both platforms over the course of time. Pro-ban protests significantly rose on social media while equity/fairness arguments cross-state comparisons diminished as content moved closer to election day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concussions are an important issue facing the short- and long-term health of athletes. News media play an important role in shaping public perceptions of concussions. However, such coverage often provides inaccurate information, disinformation, and/or trivializes concussions. To address the problem, the Concussion Legacy Foundation (CLF) provides workshops to teach journalists to responsibly report about concussions during live and post-competition coverage. Spearheaded by journalism instructors, the present study tested the effectiveness of the workshops through an experiment with 90 college journalism students. Students who completed the training showed improvement in scores on a "concussion in sport" literacy exam. They also performed better on the examination than students in a control condition. Results suggest the training is effective and could be standardized for those studying to work in the field of sports journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A national survey of 314 Americans was utilized to determine the degree in which sport identification functions similarly to political and religious identification as well as the degree to which each of the three forms of group hyper-identification correlate with violent extremism and violent radicalization. Results found that sport identification correlated with extremism but not radicalization, political identification correlated with both, and religious identification correlated with neither. Moreover, each type of identification positively correlated with the other, and subgroups within each form of identification functioned similarly. Ramifications for social identity theory are advanced, arguing that whether one identifies with these groups appears more pertinent than which group identifies within that identity association regarding propensity for violent extremism and radicalization. Avenues for future research are advanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michael Phelps was one of the first athletes to openly struggle with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, and depression while still competing. During his career, his perceived identity was tied to his status as an athlete. In retirement, his identity shifted to that of a mental health advocate. This study examines the word choice of newspaper articles on the topic of Phelps and mental health using both social identity and framing theories. Mentions of suicide and seeking help, along with the descriptions of specific types of mental illness and perceived identity assigned to Phelps, were compared between two time periods. Results showed that during Phelps's career, articles were much more likely to discuss his attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder diagnosis and not as likely to discuss suicide, seeking help, and depression. After his retirement, articles were more likely to identify Phelps as an advocate and less likely to focus on him as a celebrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the complex relationship between sports fans and the moral transgressions of athletes. It acknowledges that fans often struggle to separate an athlete's performance from their personal behavior, and that opinions on what constitutes egregious behavior vary among fans. The article emphasizes that the sports world should not be exempt from condemnation of immoral actions, and highlights the need for fans to navigate the moral ambiguities inherent in supporting their favorite athletes and teams. The article concludes by suggesting that fans should embrace their subjectivity as humans rather than striving for objectivity. [Extracted from the article]