The Qatar World Cup and Twitter sentiment: Unraveling the interplay of soft power,public opinion,and media scrutiny

Abstract

This research examines public opinion on Twitter during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, focusing on the interplay between sport, communication, and soft power. It sheds light on the online discourse surrounding a global sporting event by analyzing tweet frequency, sentiment changes, prevalent topics, and the most popular tweets surrounding controversial events. Political discussions surrounding the World Cup initially dominated but gradually declined, shifting the focus to sporting achievements and cultural exchange. Throughout the tournament, the host country, European countries participating in the World Cup, and fans contested the narrative surrounding the event. However, the study highlights how celebrities and public figures had a more significant impact on shaping conversations about sports, cultural exchange, and sociopolitical issues. These findings deepen the understanding of the interplay between sports, politics, culture, and social issues, offering insights to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

Keywords

Qatar World Cup sport communication soft power sentiment analysis

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adil

(2022b) ‘Say her name, Mahsa Amini’: Iran protests arrive at World Cup. Aljazeera , 21 November. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/21/say-her-name-mahsa-amini-iran-protests-arrive-at-world-cup (accessed 21 November 2022).

Alekseyeva

(2014) Sochi 2014 and the rhetoric of a new Russia: Image construction through mega-events. East European Politics 30: 158–174.

Aljazeera (2022) Germany players cover mouths over ‘OneLove’ armband controversy. Aljazeera , 23 November. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/23/germany-players-cover-mouths-over-onelove-armband-controversy (accessed 23 November 2022).

Al Thani

(2021) Channelling soft power: The Qatar 2022 World Cup, migrant workers, and international image. The International Journal of the History of Sport 38(17): 1729–1752.

Bailey

Oliver

Gaffney

, et al. (2017) Negotiating “new” narratives: Rio de Janeiro and the “media geography” of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 41(1): 70–93.

Barbieri

Camacho-Collados

Neves

, et al. (2020). Tweeteval: Unified benchmark and comparative evaluation for tweet classification. arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.12421.

Barbieri

Espinosa Anke

Camacho-Collados

(2021) Xlm-t: A multilingual language model toolkit for Twitter. arXiv e-prints, arXiv-2104.

Beck

(2017) Ereignis- und Hintergrundberichterstattung über kontroverse große Sportanlässe. In: Ihle

Meyen

Mittag

Nieland

(eds) Globales Mega-Event und nationaler Konfliktherd. Wiesbaden: Springer VS., pp. 67–81.

Bianco

Sons

(2023) More than a game: Football and soft power in the Gulf. The International Spectator 58(2): 92–106.

10.

Brannagan

Giulianotti

(2018) The soft power–soft disempowerment nexus: the case of Qatar. International Affairs 94(5): 1139–1157.

11.

Brannagan

Reiche

(2022) Qatar and the 2022 FIFA World Cup: Politics, Controversy, Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Switzerland: Springer Nature.

12.

Clarke

(2020) Japanese sports fan in British media discourse. 言語文化研究 3: 1–13.

13.

Cull

(2008) The public diplomacy of the modern Olympic Games and China’s soft power strategy. In: Price

Dayan

(eds) Owning the Olympics: Narratives of the New China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 117–144.

14.

Cwik

(2008) Football as a tool for peacebuilding. South Asian Journal of Peacebuilding 1(1): 1–9.

15.

Doidge

Claus

Gabler

, et al. (2019) The impact of international football events on local, national and transnational fan cultures: A critical overview. Soccer and Society 20(5): 711–720.

16.

Dorsey

(2022) The World Cup: A mixed blessing for Qatari soft power. The Middle East Journal 76(2): 265–272.

17.

Dubinsky

(2019) From soft power to sports diplomacy: A theoretical and conceptual discussion. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 15: 156–164.

18.

Dun

(2014) No beer, no way! Football fan identity enactment won't mix with Muslim beliefs in the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events 6(2): 186–199.

19.

Escobar

(2011) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

20.

Fahim

Berger

(2022) In the spotlight, Iran’s World Cup team silently nods to protests at home. The Washington Post , 21 November. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/21/iran-world-cup-protests-anthem/ (accessed 21 November 2022).

21.

Farquharson

Marjoribanks

(2003) Transforming the Springboks: Re-imagining the South African Nation through Sport. Social Dynamics 29(1): 27–48.

22.

Gao

(2010) Politics/Nationalism Affect 2008 Olympics Coverage. Newspaper Research Journal. 31(4), 77–92.

23.

Ginesta

de San Eugenio

(2014) The use of football as country branding strategy. Case study: Qatar and the Catalan sports press. Communication and Sport 2, 225–241.

24.

Griffin

(2017) Football in the hands of the other: Qatar's World Cup in the British broadsheet press. The Arab World Geographer 20(2–3), 170–182.

25.

Griffin

(2019) National identity, social legacy and Qatar 2022: the cultural ramifications of FIFA’s first Arab World Cup. Soccer & Society 20(7–8): 1000.

26.

Gripsrud

Nes

Olsson

(2010) Effects of hosting a mega-sport event on country image. Event Management 14(3): 193–204.

27.

Grix

(2012) ‘Image’leveraging and sports mega-events: Germany and the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Journal of Sport and Tourism 17(4): 289–312.

28.

Grix

Lee

(2013) Soft power, sports mega-events and emerging states: The lure of the politics of attraction. Global Society 27(4): 521–536.

29.

Haghirian

Robles-Gil

(2021) Soft power and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar: Learning from experiences of past mega-sporting event hosts. Tajseer Journal 3(2): 171–193.

30.

Himelboim

Smith

Rainie

, et al. (2017) Classifying Twitter topic-networks using social network analysis. Social Media+Society 3(1): 2056305117691545.

31.

Kim

Grix

(2021) Implementing a sustainability legacy strategy: A case study of PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games. Sustainability 13(9): 5141.

32.

Larsson

Moe

(2012) Studying political microblogging: Twitter users in the 2010 Swedish election campaign. New Media and Society 14(5): 729–747.

33.

Lee

Taylor

Lee

, et al. (2005) The impact of a sport mega-event on destination image: The case of the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan. International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Administration 6(3): 27–45.

34.

Feng

(2022) Influenced or to be influenced: Engaging social media influencers in nation branding through the lens of authenticity. Global Media and China 7(2): 219–240.

35.

Loureiro

Barbieri

Neves

, et al. (2022) Timelms: Diachronic language models from twitter. arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.03829.

36.

Marston

(2021) The episodic kneel: Racial neoliberalism, civility, and the media circulation of Colin Kaepernick, 2017–2020. Race and Social Problems 13(3): 205–214.

37.

Meier

Mutz

Glathe

, et al. (2021) Politicization of a contested mega event: The 2018 FIFA World Cup on Twitter. Communication and Sport 9(5): 785–810.

38.

Millward

(2017) World Cup 2022 and Qatar’s construction projects: Relational power in networks and relational responsibilities to migrant workers. Current Sociology 65(5): 756–776.

39.

Mutz

Gerke

(2018) Major sporting events and national identification: The moderating effect of emotional involvement and the role of the media. Communication and Sport 6: 605–626.

40.

Nguyen

(2020) BERTweet: A pre-trained language model for English Tweets. arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.10200.

41.

Nye

(1990) Soft Power . Foreign Policy 80: 153–171.

42.

Oxford

Analytica

(2022). World Cup leads to closer ties among Gulf states. Expert Briefings , 19 December. Available at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/OXAN-DB274775/full/html (accessed 28 December 2022).

43.

Ragnedda

Muschert

(eds) (2013) The digital divide: The internet and social inequality in international perspective. In: Routledge Advances in Sociology. London, UK: Taylor & Francis, pp. 29–51.

44.

Rocha

(2017) Rio 2016 Olympic Games and diplomatic legacies. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 9(2): 277–294.

45.

Rookwood

(2019) Access, security and diplomacy: Perceptions of soft power, nation branding and the organisational challenges facing Qatar’s 2022 FIFA World Cup. Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal 9(1): 26–44.

46.

Rowe

(2018) The Worlds That Are Watching: Media, Politics, Diplomacy, and the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Communication and Sport. 7(1): 3–22.

47.

Sands

Boren

Taylor

(2022) Europe teams won’t use LGBTQ armbands at World Cup after FIFA threats. The Washington Post , 21 November. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/21/world-cup-one-love-armbands-yellow-cards/ (accessed: 21 November 2022).

48.

Sgueglia

Levinson

(2022) Sports reporter Grant Wahl died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at World Cup, his wife says. The CNN , 14 December. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/14/us/grant-wahl-cause-death/index.html (accessed 20 December 2022).

49.

Shad

(2022) World Cup: Iran protesters confronted at World Cup game against Wales. The BBC , 25 November. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63762276 (accessed 25 November 2022).

50.

Sugden

Tomlinson

(eds) (2011). Watching the Olympics: Politics, Power and Representation (1st ed). UK: Routledge.

51.

Swart

Hussain

(2023) FIFA 2022 World Cup in Qatar: Under the gaze of western media. In: Sports Mega-Events in Asia. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore, pp. 199–222.

52.

Szondi

(2008) Public Diplomacy and Nation Branding: Conceptual Similarities and Differences. Hague, Netherlands: Clingendael Institute.

53.

Tasci

Hahm

Terry

(2019) A longitudinal study of Olympic Games’ impact on the image of a host country. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 36(4): 443–457.

54.

Tomlinson

Young

(2006) Culture, politics, and spectacle in the global sports event: An introduction. In: Tomlinson

Young

(eds) National Identity and Global Sports Events: Culture, Politics, and Spectacle in the Olympics and the Football World Cup. Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 1–14.

55.

Tufekci

(2014) Big questions for social media big data: Representativeness, validity and other methodological pitfalls. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 8(1): 505–514.

56.

Tumasjan

Sprenger

Sandner

, et al. (2010) Predicting elections with Twitter: What 140 characters reveal about political sentiment. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 4(1): 178–185.

57.

Zeng

Kolmer

(2011) Beijing Olympics 2008 impact on China’s image formation in international TV coverage: A media content analysis perspective. International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship 12(4): 319–336.