Scandal and social inequality: how young Koreans feel relative deprivation to sport celebrities

Abstract

It is often observed that when sport celebrities are involved in scandals they continue to reap a variety of benefits once the scandal fades. While it may appear they suffer little consequence for their misdeed, consequences do of course ensue. One of these is relative deprivation, particularly for young groups. This study examines how young South Koreans differently shape relative deprivation according to the type of scandal. A sample of 262 Korean university students were subjected to a priming scenario technique that showed examples of Korean sport celebrities’ real scandals. This study finds that Korean university students’ cognition, affect, and behaviour of relative deprivation were positively correlated to one another. Only the behavioural dimension was significantly different according to the type of scandal. The results could be implemented toward customising sport organisation’s communication message and a sport celebrity’s image repairing strategy when the scandal is related to social equity.

Keywords:

• Relative deprivation
• sport celebrity
• scandal
• social equity
• priming scenario

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.