Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice?
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American Political Science Review (2021) 1–18 doi:10.1017/S0003055421000423 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice? The Effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic Behaviors and Attitudes ALA’ ALRABABA’H Stanford University WILLIAM MARBLE Stanford University SALMA MOUSA Yale University ALEXANDRA A. SIEGEL University of Colorado Boulder https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055421000423 . an 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 C 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. https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms n February 2018, fans of one of England’s most In the first three seasons that Salah played for I storied soccer clubs, Liverpool F.C., celebrated a Liverpool F.C., the club was extraordinarily successful, decisive victory in soccer’s most elite league. A 5-0 appearing in consecutive U.E.F.A. Champion’sLeague win over F.C. Porto in the U.E.F.A. Champions League finals and taking the title in 2019. The club was similarly previewed an excellent season that saw Liverpool F.C. successful in the domestic league, winning the English advance to the final. Mohamed Salah, a young Egyp- Premier League for the first time in club history in 2020, tian striker, was key to the club’s success. After the with Salah being crowned the league’s top goal scorer victory, fans chanted: two years in a row. Salah is noteworthy not only for his skill on the soccer If he scores another few field, but also for his conspicuous Islamic identity— Then I’ll be Muslim, too. which was arguably unprecedented in elite soccer. If he’s good enough for you, European fans were not accustomed to seeing players He’s good enough for me. prostrate to perform a Muslim prayer (sujood) after Sitting in a mosque, scoring goals, for example. His popularity fueled media , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at That’s where I wanna be. speculation that Salah’s Muslim identity might be reducing Islamophobia among fans (The National Fans created more homespun chants as Liverpool 2018; Thomas 2018).1 Some pundits argued that Salah F.C. continued their successful season: portrayed “favorable images of Muslims, helping to reduce stereotypes and break down barriers within Mohamed Salah communities” (Monks 2018). Others disagreed. Des- 25 Sep 2021 at 05:18:58 A gift from Allah. pite the fact that “everyone loves a winner,” there was , on ’ “ He’s always scoring, still no systematic evidence that Salah s fame could in ’ any way decrease the mainstream Islamophobia in It s almost boring. ” So please don’t take British culture (Al-Sayyad 2018). Beyond anecdotes, little is known about whether Salah has had a system- Mohamed away. 170.106.202.126 atic influence on Islamophobia. The possibility that exposure to Salah reduced Ala’ Alrababa’h , Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Islamophobia supports the parasocial contact hypoth- — . IP address: Science, Stanford University, and Immigration Policy Lab, Stanford esis (Schiappa, Gregg, and Hewes 2005) the idea University and ETH Zurich, [email protected]. that mediated contact with celebrities or characters William Marble , Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political from out-groups has the potential to reduce prejudice Science, Stanford University, [email protected]. toward the out-group as a whole. This proposed exten- Salma Mousa , Assistant Professor, Department of Political sion to Allport’s(1954) classic contact hypothesis has Science, Yale University, [email protected]. Alexandra A. Siegel , Assistant Professor, Department of Political received support in observational studies as well as Science, University of Colorado Boulder, and Immigration Policy Lab, Stanford University and ETH Zurich, alexandra.siegel@color- ado.edu. 1 We adopt a relatively expansive definition of Islamophobia: fear, https://www.cambridge.org/core Received: July 16, 2019; revised: March 31, 2021; accepted: May 03, hatred, or dislike of Islam or Muslims, as well as anti-Muslim preju- 2021. dicial attitudes or behaviors more generally (Sheridan 2006). 1 Downloaded from Ala’ Alrababa’h et al. laboratory- and survey-based experiments, but not in This study contributes to our understanding of para- naturalistic settings with causal purchase. In this social contact in four primary ways. First, we study paper, we provide a real-world test of the parasocial naturally occurring exposure to a celebrity—rather than contact hypothesis. We test the proposition that Sal- exposure induced in a laboratory or survey experiment— ah’s meteoric rise reduced anti-Muslim attitudes and providing strong claims to external validity. Second, we behaviors among Liverpool F.C. fans. We test this examine an unexpected and plausibly exogenous hypothesis using three complementary research increase in exposure to a celebrity from a minority group, designs: an analysis of hate crimes in England, an allowing us to estimate plausible counterfactuals. This analysis of anti-Muslim tweets among U.K. soccer research design gives us causal purchase beyond what is fans, and an original survey experiment. typically attainable in observational studies of parasocial First, we draw on hate crime data from 25 police contact or the contact hypothesis more generally, where departments in England between 2015 and 2018. We selection bias (more tolerant individuals selecting into https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055421000423 employ a variant of the synthetic control method to intergroup contact) poses a threat to inference. Third, we . generate a counterfactual hate crime rate for the study behavioral outcomes, including hate crimes and Merseyside police force—which covers the city of Liv- hate speech, that are of direct relevance for policy. erpool—after Salah signed with Liverpool F.C. We find Finally, we buttress our observational results with an that Merseyside experienced a 16% lower hate crime original survey experiment. This lends further credence rate after Salah was signed relative to the expected rate to our causal estimates and tests a critical assumption had he not been signed. Second, we analyze 15 million needed for parasocial contact with one individual to tweets produced by followers of prominent soccer clubs reduce prejudice toward an entire group: the salience in the English Premier League. Using the same syn- of group identity. thetic control method as in our hate crime analysis, we The rest of the paper is structured as follows. In the find that the proportion of anti-Muslim tweets pro- next section, we draw on the parasocial contact litera- https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms duced by Liverpool F.C. fans after Salah joined was ture to motivate our empirical hypotheses. Next, we about half of the expected rate had he not joined the provide a brief discussion of Islamophobia in the club—3.8% versus 7.3% of tweets related to Muslims. U.K. Then, we present our analysis of hate crime data Finally, we implement a survey experiment among in England, which is followed by an analysis of tweets 8,060 Liverpool F.C. fans to explicitly test how expos- produced by Twitter followers of English Premier ure to Salah might lead to generalized tolerance toward League clubs. After a brief discussion of robustness Muslims. In line with the parasocial contact hypothesis, and generalizability, we describe our original survey our results suggest that the salience of Salah’s Muslim experiment testing the proposition that the salience of identity reduced prejudice toward Muslims writ large. Salah’s identity may play a key role in reducing preju- Priming respondents with information about Salah’s dice toward Muslims more generally. In the discussion religious practices boosted the belief that Islam is section, we interpret the results and address their gen- compatible with British values by around 5 percentage eralizability before concluding the paper. points, compared to the baseline rate of 18% among the control group. These findings suggest that positive exposure to out-group celebrities, especially when , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at THE PARASOCIAL CONTACT HYPOTHESIS these celebrities’ minority group membership is highly salient, can reduce prejudice. A rich literature documents the relationship between This “Salah effect” is likely not unique to Salah. various forms of intergroup contact and prejudice. The Celebrities with role model-like qualities have long contact hypothesis posits that personal contact