Abstract:
Drawing on moral legitimacy theory and employing natural language processing techniques and thematic analysis, we examined the public’s perceptions of a speech delivered by FIFA's president in a press conference one day before the Qatar 2022 FIFA men's World Cup. In total, 34,714 publicly available user responses were collected from news media YouTube channels in North America (CNN), Europe (BBC), and Asia (Al Jazeera), as well as from Twitter hashtags related to the press conference. The results suggested that FIFA's communication was "debated" due to questions and challenges posed by the public. It is noted, however, that the magnitude of negative and positive evaluations varied according to the medium used and the region. Negative evaluations related to ‘hypocrisy,’ ‘lack of transparency,’ and ‘diplomatic hedging,’ whereas positive evaluations related to ‘symbolic communication,’ ‘activist governance,’ and ‘cultural appropriateness.’