A Utilitarian Analysis of Cyber Violence among Sports Fans
Introduction
Cyberspace is a significant part of our daily life. In the sports world, most teams and individual players use online platforms to interact with their fans. Meanwhile, online platforms, especially social media, provide sports fans with viable avenues to manage social identities. Fans use these platforms to elevate group distinctiveness, minimize in-group issues, and derogate out-group members (Sanderson, 2013). However, due to the disinhibition effects of cyberspace, fans are more likely to say and do things that they would not say and do in the real world, including committing cyber violence (Suler, 2004). Cyber violence generally involves using the Internet to threaten,
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The philosopher Jeremy Bentham argues that the object of morality is the promotion of the greatest happiness of the maximum number of members of society. Therefore, if actions tend to increase pleasure, those actions are good. John Stuart Mill, building on Bentham’s work, states that the greatest happiness should be thought of not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of quality (Albert, E.M. & Denis, 1980). Those opinions will be utilized to scrutinize cyber-enabled violent behavior among sports fans. This paper will also use some research and articles that have shown the prevalence and the consequences of cyber violence in …show more content…
This is how I act with my friends in real life. I'll tell them to kill themselves or I'll call them whatever—but I have nothing but love for them … I totally understand that if [an NFL player] were in my face, there is no way I'd be saying this.
Emmerling told the interviewers why he likes to show his love in baffling ways. He further admitted that he felt jealousy when he saw some players tweet back at other online critics but ignore him. By sending hostile comments to their favorite players and teams, these fans' demands, such as to be potentially heard, to release their opinions and to show their attachment, are
the wild antics of the die hard fans. In my essay I will try and attempt to describe as
Sport fans, sometimes also called sport devotees, followers, or supporters, are persons who are enthusiastically devoted to a particular athlete, team or sport. They may show their enthusiasm by often attending sporting events or watch on television, being members of a fan club, follow sport news through newspapers, online websites, and creating fanzines. Their disposition is often such that they will experience a game or event by living through their favored players or teams. These behaviors manifest itself in different ways. To enable better understanding of these behavioral patterns, we have to classify these sports fans into groups based on their devotion to teams: fair-weather fans, bandwagon and the super-fans.
Adachi, P.J.C. & Willoughby, T. (2011). The Effect of Video Game Competition and Violence on Aggressive Behavior: Which Characteristic Has the greatest influence? Psychology of Violence 1(4), 259-274.
The importance of fans is vital because in addition to skill talent and hardwork, fans greatly affect how a team performs in their games. They affect the way a player plays because fans have a way of getting into their players heads and the opponent's head, even the referees are affected by the fans and we rarely notice the importance. In 2001 a Sports Ethics article “ The Ideal Fan” by Myles Dichter he explains the importance of fans and connection between fans
Coakley, J. J., & Donnelly, P. (2007). Violence in Sports . Sports in society: issues & controversies (9th ed., pp. 198-199). Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Does entertainment influence society's attitude towards violent behavior? In order to fully answer this question we must first understand what violence is. Violence is the use of one's powers to inflict mental or physical injury upon another; examples of this would be rape or murder. Violence in entertainment reaches the public by way of television, movies, plays, music, and novels. Through the course of this essay it will be proven that violence in entertainment is a major factor in the escalation of violence in society, once this is proven we will take all of the evidence that has been shown throughout this paper and come to a conclusion as to whether or not violence in entertainment is justified and whether or not it should be censored.
When examining the issue of criminal acts in sports it is easy to realize that there are many places where these acts occur. The range of these acts is far more vast than just in the professional arenas. This is, however, what the public sees and hears about most often. While this is one of the major topics of this paper, criminal acts are found in all of sport ranging from professionals, to college, high school, and in youth sports, including the reaction of the fans. This paper will take an in-depth look at the four major points regarding criminal acts in sport: the acts themselves; the consequences of those acts; the possible reasons for the acts occurring; an analysis of a few major events that have occurred and the possible solutions to the problem of criminal acts in sport. In the section about fan reaction to sport, there will be an overall account of the individual acts and not personal cases due to the overload of personal events that occur.
Brady, Robert. "Violent Virtual Video Games and Hostile Thoughts." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media (2004). EBSCO. DePaul Library. 7 Mar. 2008.
...ent behavior in order to win the game. Whereas, “sports violence can be seen as either an example of laudable competitive drive present in worthy participates or an underhanded attempts at rule bending” (Raney & Depalma, 2006). Moreover, decades of media exposure may have led to an increase in the acceptance of violence. Is media coverage exploiting sports violence and aggression for ratings? It’s unclear if fans are becoming desensitized and/or imitating the violence witnessed through the medium of media. Regardless, it’s abundantly clear the changes need to be made in light of the negative effects. Identifying and examining media’s role in the public’s acceptance of aggressive behavior in sports may aid society in minimizing the violence and aggression as much as possible surrounding sporting events to make sporting events safer for both players and fans.
Cyberbullying is more than sending direct message to someone and calling them out there name. Cyberbullying is when someone makes a fake page or post something anonymously to a direct person to make them feel bad about them self’s, but cyberbullying can also someone preparing to be someone else to attract a certain persons attention. Cyberbullying is not only online, but it’s also on TV. How is that you wonder. Cyberbullying is on one of MTV...
obsessed by those sports and by taking a sport away from them, could ruin their
In today's society, many aspects of crime are committed on a regular basis. Civilians take advantage of people all the time using online resources such as fraudulent websites requiring credit card information to get a free monthly trial. Other examples of cyber crimes include online chat websites, full of predators, or websites needing a downloadable program that contains a hacking virus. Sadly, there are many cases of cyber crime all over the internet. The acts of cyber crimes are considered violent acts like any other.
With the increase in society taking a stance against violence, sports has become an area where some feel that the violent acts such as the hitting and fighting that occurs should be eliminated. It is very difficult to change the way that a game is played because people have been playing it that way for years. The violence in sports needs to be eliminated because of the extreme cases that continue to haunt many of the leagues and the players themselves.
out about a player or a team issue? What is the social dimension of being a sports fan, is