@inproceedings{28f5d41c4be74543a6dcabd94600ad91,
title = "Blue vs. Red State Tweeters' Response to Nike's Kaepernick ad Campaign: Social Justice Demanded",
abstract = "This study examines tweets associated with the 2018 Nike ad focusing on former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The ad features a close-up of Kaepernick's face with the caption: {"}Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.{"} The paper analyzes tweets with an eye on activism and social justice. The results show that demands for societal change and readiness to protest against systemic racism manifested on Twitter well before the large-scale civil unrest in Summer 2020. The 2018 tweets demonstrate differences in tweet frequency and hashtags retweet counts between Tweeters in red and blue states. Residents of blue states tweeted more often than residents of red states, and blue states' tweets were strongly positively correlated to the state's percentage who voted for the democrat candidate in the 2016 presidential election. Also, the examination of hashtag usage showed that although pro-Kaepernick discussion happened in both blue and red states, a portion of the Twitter population located in red states skewed anti-Kaepernick.",
keywords = "NFL, Twitter, activism, advertising, black lives matter movement, social justice, social media",
author = "Lisa Gandy and Elina Erzikova and Zulfia Zaher",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 8th European Conference on Social Media, ECSM 2021.; null ; Conference date: 01-07-2021 Through 02-07-2021",
year = "2021",
doi = "10.34190/ESM.21.052",
language = "English",
series = "8th European Conference on Social Media, ECSM 2021",
publisher = "Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited",
pages = "65--74",
editor = "Christos Karpasitis",
booktitle = "8th European Conference on Social Media, ECSM 2021",
}