From the Stands to Social Media: The Changing Nature of Racism in Football

The third talk in the Leeds Cultural Conversations 2016/17 series.

Presented by Dr Daniel Kilvington.

This talk evaluated the shifting nature of racism within contemporary English football. While overt racism in the stands decreases, racism on social media, and on Twitter in particular, is rife. The factors that cause and encourage online hate-speech were critically discussed and understood with the aid of key theories such as Suler’s Online Disinhibition Effect (2004). The efforts of football’s key stakeholders, social media organisations and the legal system were analysed before offering a number of recommendations on how to further combat racism on social media.

The talk was filmed by Tomaso Aramini, a student from the Northern Film School.

This event was part of the Leeds Cultural Conversations series, presented by Leeds Beckett University and Leeds City Council. Leeds Cultural Conversations are a series of monthly talks programmed by the Centre for Culture & the Arts at Leeds Beckett University. For more information on the series please visit www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/LCC.