Wie Mohamed Salah im Alleingang die Akzeptanz des Islams unter Liverpool-Fans steigerte
Eve Sneider and Jonathan Stray:
When Mohamed Salah joined Liverpool F.C. in 2017, a few remarkable things happened. In his first three seasons with the team, they had impressive showings at consecutive U.E.F.A. Champions League and English Premier League finals, ultimately winning both titles in back-to-back years.
But also, a new study finds that hate crimes in the Liverpool area dropped 16%, and Liverpool F.C. fans posted half as many anti-Muslim tweets as fans of other top soccer clubs. Unlike most of his teammates, Salah is Muslim, and was outspoken about his faith on and off the pitch, even performing a Muslim prayer after scoring goals.
As the paper’s authors point out, role-model celebrities from minority groups have a history of shaping social attitudes. Think of Jackie Robinson or Nadiyah Hussain, the headscarf-wearing 2015 winner of The Great British Bake-Off. This is often called the “parasocial contact hypothesis”: “the idea that mediated contact with celebrities or characters from out-groups has the potential to reduce prejudice toward the out-group as a whole.” We're also reminded of “The Team,” a decade-old TV show created by the international peacebuilding organization Search for Common Ground, which airs in more than 17 countries and portrays fictional soccer teams overcoming their differences to win games .
The case of Salah provides a real-world example in support of the theory of parasocial contact. To measure rates of hate crimes, the authors examined data from 25 police departments across England and compared what happened in Liverpool to what happened across the rest of the country. They used the same method to examine anti-Muslim tweets coming from Liverpool fans, and found that they were 3.8% of all tweets posted after Salah joined, compared to the 7.3% they would have expected had he not joined.
In addition, they conducted a survey with 8,000 Liverpool fans where they asked a series of questions about whether Islam is compatible with British values and whether immigrants are generally a positive influence in the U.K. When participants were given information about Salah’s religious practices before answering these questions, it boosted their belief that Islam is compatible with British values by 5%.
These results are a promising look at how powerfully and simply celebrities can help to reduce prejudice, especially in contexts where people don’t necessarily have much opportunity to interact with others who are different from them.
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