Can exposure to celebrities reduce prejudice?

Description

The effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic behaviours and attitudes

Presented by Salma Mousa with Ala' Alrababa'h, William Marble and Alexandra Siegel

Can exposure to successful celebrities from a stigmatized group reduce prejudice toward that group writ large? We study the sudden and phenomenal rise to fame of Liverpool F.C. soccer star Mohamed Salah, a visibly Muslim player.

We estimate the causal effect of Salah joining Liverpool F.C. on Islamophobia using hate crime reports throughout England, 15 million tweets from British soccer fans, and a survey experiment of Liverpool fans. We find that Merseyside (home to Liverpool F.C.) experienced a 16% drop in hate crimes, compared to a synthetic control.

There is no similar effect for other types of crime.

We also find that Liverpool fans halved their rates of posting anti-Muslim tweets relative to fans of other top-flight clubs. The survey experiment suggests that the high salience of Salah’s Muslim identity may have reduced prejudice toward Muslims more broadly. Our findings indicate that positive exposure to outgroup role models can decrease prejudice.

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The SoDa Labs webinar series provides a platform for researchers around the world to present work that uses novel and alternative data and/or tools from data science and beyond to answer social science questions.