A study on the social phenomenon and perception of sports sexual violence through big data analysis of social media

Abstract

Background: With the recent exposure of the violence and sexual violence suffered by the Olympic gold medalist speed skater, Suk-hee Shim, the closed culture of Korean sports circles has surfaced once again. This study aims to analyze what knowledge system, meaning or policy agenda is indicated by the Korean public’s social perception of policies on sports sexual violence.

Research method: Data associated with ‘sports sexual violence’ were collected through Textom from social media of the nation’s major portal sites (Naver and Daum) from January 8, 2018 to May 31, 2019. Textom was also utilized for data refinement and matrix creation. Semantic network analysis and its results were visualized using the NetDraw network visualization tool in UCINET 6.

Results: The key words – ‘sports circles’, ‘eradication’, ‘measure’, ‘violence’, ‘Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism/MCST’, and ‘National Human Rights Commission of Korea’ – showed a high frequency and centrality. In particular, from the words ‘sports circles’, ‘eradication’, ‘measure’, ‘National Human Rights Commission of Korea’ and ‘research’, it was shown that tackling the causes of sports-related sexual violence and setting up response measures for eradication and prevention are important. Second, using CONCOR analysis of sports sexual violence, eight clusters were formed: Group 1: Background of establishing a dedicated organization, Group 2: Government response, Group 3: Installment of National Human Rights Commission, Group 4: Corruption in ice sports, Group 5: Government commitment, Group 6: An expanded investigation into the sports circles, Group 7: Accusation, Group 8: Basic rights.

Conclusions: The public perception is that, given the number of cases of sexual violence that have occurred in the sports community, and the inadequate responses to addressing these crimes, sports circles have lost their capacity for self-regulation. This requires a comprehensive inspection of the sports community. Moreover, it was revealed that the public requests that the government should take the initiative to provide fundamental measures to protect the human rights of victims through the operation of a dedicated body, such as the National Human Rights Commission. [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2020;34(Special issue-3):28-39]

Keywords: Sports sexual violence, semantic network analysis, social media, perception