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Description
The culture of bullying in the context of sport is a problem for many athletic organizations. There is a growing desire among athletes, coaches, fans, and the general public to see this epidemic of bullying subside. Despite these trends, there are still many social groups who are unaware or opposed to such initiatives to combat bullying. The state of the topic is reviewed, including current events of bullying in sport, and the continuum of gayacceptance and affiliation, which has been shown to be a common factor in many instances of athletics-based bullying. The general assumption is that sport often cultivates homophobic and hegemonic masculine roots. Next, frame theory is addressed to provide a conceptual perspective toward the process of message campaigns designed to influence attitudes toward bullying in sport. This study was designed to survey college students through an online questionnaire and to collect data on the most effective messages and techniques that could be used to persuade the public in adopting anti-bullying and gay-acceptance sentiments in the context of sport. A detailed procedure of the study will then follow, as well as predicted hypotheses will be outlined in the proposal to this research, along with possible future directions. Finally, the results section will detail how that although the three hypotheses were not supported, and the reliability of some elements of the survey were hard to establish, the data shows that there are indeed preferred messages amongst the participants. Specifically, participants rated gain frames higher than loss frames, females rated messages generally higher than males, and age influenced responses on bullying education and types of sport.
