In the Aftermath of the Kneel that Sparked a Difference: Examining Athlete Activism on Social Media

Abstract: The increasingly entangled correlation between media, sport and activism in the United States has generated an upsurge in new media research that focuses on athletes’ political social media posts from an ‘outsider’s’ perspective. To clearer comprehend the complex relationship of media, sport and activism from an ‘insider’s’ perspective, this thesis aims to converse with collegiate athletes in the United States about how they experience their personalized politics on social media, as well as it observes the collegiate athletes’ activist practices on particularly Twitter and Facebook. As an auxiliary ‘prop’, I utilize former NFL (National Football League) player Colin Kaepernick’s approach to athlete activism to start the discussions about the topic with the collegiate athletes. Kaepernick’s kneel during the national anthem in 2016, prior to a football game displayed on national television, gained a variety of negative responses, but also sparked a difference in conversations about the politization of sport, and ultimately lead to a swift re-appearance of athlete activism on social media (Serazio and Thorson, 2020). Thus, by collecting interview data and observations of the media practices of collegiate athletes, the analysis draws on bottom-up framing and practice theory to better understand how such sportspersons experience the intersection between sports and politics on social media, the implications of athlete activism, and the media practices involved in such performance. Ultimately, the results of this study suggest that appearances of tensions, anxieties and pressures subsist in collegiate athletes’ activism practices on social media, making it an auspicious site for further research seeking to investigate the intersection of media, sport, and activism.