Question: How has sports activism changed over the years in terms of media responsiveness. Has the media become more critical or more accepting of athlete stances on non-athletic issues? How has the population responded to this change in media activity?
Response: Over the years, the media has become more accepting of athlete activism as shown through more balanced coverage as well as more resources to see why these athletes hold this position. I plan to prove this by pulling information from media from the time of early activism, such as newspapers from the 1960s all the way until the modern media coverage of today. I intend to see how the media has changed in their responses. If possible, I’d also likely to incorporate an element of how fans specifically have responded to this, by possibly seeing interview clips of fans from the 1960s about Ali, to viewing the social media comments of fans today. I intend to prove the change in media coverage by calling upon the more favorable media sources explaining activist agendas, examining the history of being moe multicultural and how this has caused the media to be more accepting of different perspectives.
The Rhetoric of Activism 
Interesting stuff Abhinav! I like the historical approach. I would imagine that people over the years have gotten more accepting of activism in sports as they seem to have become more accepting of activism everywhere, but I wonder what the impact of activists in the realm of athletics was like then vs. today. Muhammad Ali was such a hero for so many people, athletically and through social activism. Meanwhile, Colin Kaepernick really isn’t respected much at all for his athleticism or activism. Maybe something you could look into is how much a athlete’s competitive prowess/ public admiration feeds into the impact and reception of their activist method?
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This is an awesome thesis Abhinav! I have so much respect for athletes like Muhammad Ali and the legacy they left even after their athletic primes. One avenue of your topic that I’m particularly interested in is when that activism is justified. At what point is using sports as a political platform overstepping a boundary? Colin Kaepernick was criticized heavily for taking a political stance through an otherwise trivial action. A lot of coaches have argued that Colin’s means of protesting distracts from the sport and have attacked sports activism in general. However, they rarely outline the “proper” form of protesting within sports, and that’s something I’d be really interested in learning about from your paper.
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