Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice? The Effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic Behaviors and Attitudes

Ala’ Alrababa’H,Salma Mousa,William Marble,Alexandra A Siegel

doi:10.1017/s0003055421000423

Abstract

Can exposure to celebrities from stigmatized groups reduce prejudice? To address this question, we study the case of Mohamed Salah, a visibly Muslim, elite soccer player. Using data on hate crime reports throughout England and 15 million tweets from British soccer fans, we find that after Salah joined Liverpool F.C., hate crimes in the Liverpool area dropped by 16% compared with a synthetic control, and Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of posting anti-Muslim tweets relative to fans of other top-flight clubs. An original survey experiment suggests that the salience of Salah’s Muslim identity enabled positive feelings toward Salah to generalize to Muslims more broadly. Our findings provide support for the parasocial contact hypothesis—indicating that positive exposure to out-group celebrities can spark real-world behavioral changes in prejudice.

Highlights

Can exposure to celebrities from stigmatized groups reduce prejudice? To address this question, we study the case of Mohamed Salah, a visibly Muslim, elite soccer player
Using data on hate crime reports throughout England and 15 million tweets from British soccer fans, we find that after Salah joined Liverpool F.C., hate crimes in the Liverpool area dropped by 16% compared with a synthetic control, and Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of posting anti-Muslim tweets relative to fans of other top-flight clubs
Using the same synthetic control method as in our hate crime analysis, we find that the proportion of anti-Muslim tweets produced by Liverpool F.C. fans after Salah joined was about half of the expected rate had he not joined the club—3.8% versus 7.3% of tweets related to Muslims

Summary

Introduction

We study the case of Mohamed Salah, a visibly Muslim, elite soccer player. I n February 2018, fans of one of England’s most storied soccer clubs, Liverpool F.C., celebrated a decisive victory in soccer’s most elite league. Fans created more homespun chants as Liverpool F.C. continued their successful season: Mohamed Salah A gift from Allah. European fans were not accustomed to seeing players prostrate to perform a Muslim prayer (sujood) after scoring goals, for example. His popularity fueled media speculation that Salah’s Muslim identity might be reducing Islamophobia among fans (The National 2018; Thomas 2018).. Little is known about whether Salah has had a systematic influence on Islamophobia

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