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This chapter shows how professional athlete-motherhood is presented by the mainstream media and challenged by self-representation on social media, using arguably one of the most successful professional athletes of all time, Serena Williams, as a case study. We suggest that Williams' use of social media has allowed motherhood to be a part of her entrepreneurial self, accessing sponsorship and endorsements while also normalising struggles and using her platform to raise awareness of what it means to be a ‘working mother’. In comparison, mainstream media presents athlete-motherhood as either the athlete-mother as a transgressor or as the ‘super mum’, a theme where the athlete manages the demands of motherhood with sport and does it all ‘perfectly’. While mainstream media may present these two tensions and speculate on what women's bodies should be able to do, Williams reminds us through her social media that her professional status does not disappear, she is not ‘coming back’ from becoming a mother, it's a part of who she is, thus, showing that motherhood can be part of being a professional athlete and can be celebrated via online self-presentations. We conclude with a call for future work to explore the understanding of the pregnant athlete beyond a case study of a global celebrity athlete to look at the experiences of athlete-mother at other levels of sport and society.

To outline strategies for balancing a critical approach to sport for development and peace (SDP) interventions with approaches that highlight the potentially positive outcomes of SDP. Two examples of attempts to balance these approaches are highlighted. One is a critical analysis of responses to sport-related environmental problems. The other is a study of how a sport-related reconciliation event led by celebrity athletes was successfully organized.

In the first part of the chapter, the complexity of the SDP concept (and the terms sport, peace, and development) is discussed along with the challenges of negotiating critical and more optimistic stances on SDP. In the second part, two approaches to navigating between “extremely critical” and “unwaveringly optimistic” stances on SDP are outlined through two case studies.

The two case studies are described along with preliminary findings from studies that were conducted. Each case study is accompanied by a discussion of how the author “middle-walked” between “extremely critical” and “unwaveringly optimistic” positions on SDP. A focus in this section is on how theory, methods, and strategies for reporting findings were accounted for in the process of balancing these distinct positions.

The difficulties attempting to balance critical and optimistic positions are discussed. The difficulties connecting critical analysis with practical suggestions for improving SDP-related work were also outlined.

Company programs to hire military veterans and Olympic athletes represent a convergence of responsibilities, interests, and opportunities for human resources (HR) and public relations (PR) staffs. These employment initiatives often reflect corporate social responsibility (CSR) values as well as business goals. This chapter explores why companies create special hiring programs, how they are integrated into an HR function, and the role of PR in communicating about the program as part of a socially responsible mission. Though distinctive in their roles – HR in managing corporate staffing and PR in shaping a company’s image and promoting its brands – these two functions can jointly amplify the value and impact of special hiring programs.

This chapter provides an analysis of the history of politics in sport, how nationalism has amplified divisions in politics and sports and how social media has impacted politics in sports.

The authors examine how the nationalism narrative is present in sports, thus further enmeshing politics in sport. A review of literature and case studies are used to provide context of how athletes have used their social media for political purposes and how political ideologies and social media can impact international sport markets.

While politics and sports being deeply intertwined is not new, social media has pushed even publicly apolitical organizations to get involved in political discussions. Social media has allowed for some to continue pushing a nationalism narrative as it relates to sport and challenge athletes who appear to threaten seemingly nationalistic values. However, social media also enables athletes to engage their fans and advocate for themselves and political issues in real time.

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The chapter looks at nationalism, politics in sport and how social media can be used to further amplify and/or divide over political ideologies. Athletes are in a unique position to use their social media platforms to speak directly to their fans and engage in politics, pushing organizations to seemingly abandon their once public apolitical stances. This chapter examines how athletes, organizations and politicians are using social media to debate matters, advocate for social justice and call attention to a myriad of political issues.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze ethical issues and current trends of major college athletics in relationship to Black males in society. The focus of this chapter is on identity and how higher education institutions can cultivate a more balanced student-athlete mindset through images and representations. In addition to a review of relevant literature, a content analysis of six State Farm Insurance Cliff and Chris Paul commercials was conducted so that new knowledge is applied to the constructs of academic and athletic identity. Commercial and advertisement content analysis was utilized to address student-athlete life skills issues in terms of transferable attributes from sport to life. College athletics programs need to develop systemic and culturally relevant strategies that enable Black males to transfer skill sets developed through participation in intercollegiate athletics to future occupational endeavors. The chapter concludes with a recommendation section for education research, practice, and policy.

This chapter covers many angles of the role national identity plays in the production, consumption, and reception of sport via social media channels. More specifically, it explores what sociology specifically brings to the equation regarding theories of group identity, identifies the core studies that represent what we currently know about national identification in the social mediated sports world, and determines fruitful themes and paths for subsequent investigation.

The approach to the chapter largely involves the synthesis of a diverse set of literatures in the academic spaces of nationalism, fan behavior, and social media.

The chapter advances the argument that only a handful of investigations in social media content focus on how national identity is forged within sport. Global events (Olympics, World Cup) seem to be the current areas of investigation, with social media facilitating various forms of BIRGing and CORFing depending largely on real-time results.

Relevant and understudied areas for future investigation on the nexus of sport, social media, and national identity include gendered correlates, GORFing (Glory Out of Reflected Failure), redefinitions of sport fandom, eSports, and the application of new technologies, applications and platforms in the social media space.

The chapter establishes a foundation of knowledge triangulating sport, social media, and national identity while creating warrants for key scholarly agenda advancement in the future.

To outline the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in debates about sport, alcohol, and addiction. It appears that a growing number of sportspeople suffer from addiction to alcohol and other drugs while at the same time alcohol use is widely sanctioned and celebrated in sport. The high-profile falls from grace are a public display of a more insidious, problematic relationship to drugs and alcohol in sport, yet cultural change is often difficult given long standing associations between sport and alcohol.

In the first part of the chapter, the key themes in the drugs, alcohol, and sport debate (notably health and ethics) are discussed. In the second part, some of the relationships between sport and alcohol, such as sponsorship and the cultural sanctioning of particular forms of drinking and masculine identities are examined. In the third, the issues of drug and alcohol addiction and recovery, and the implications for sport and sporting identities are discussed.

The chapter reveals the tensions that underpin the social contexts of drug and alcohol use and misuse in sport. The chapter suggests that a recalibration of popular understandings of masculinity in sport may provide a safe space through which to share battles with alcohol and addiction.

Discussion of the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in the relationships between sport and alcohol have important implications for a discussion and analysis of addiction and alcohol in sport, and for sport and social policy, health promotion, and social care more broadly.

Several brands are striving in their endeavors to find new ways to improve their consumer engagement through social media. They are using different tools including influencer marketing through social networking sites (SNSs). Therefore, this chapter addresses a gap in the academic literature as it distinguishes between two types of online influencers. The researchers investigate the effects of celebrity endorsers’ and of micro influencers’ posts on a brand’s page on Instagram. They examine the number of followers, clicks, comments and likes that are generated following their influencer marketing. The results suggest that both influencers have generated varying levels and types of interactions. In sum, this exploratory study revealed that the chosen celebrity’s posts attracted more followers to the brand’s Instagram page, when compared to the micro influencer’s publications. However, the latter has garnered more clicks, comments and likes, thereby increasing the consumer-brand engagement through social media. In conclusion, this contribution identifies future research avenues relating to influencer marketing.