Framing, agency, and athlete activism: The case of simone biles at the 2020 olympics

In July of 2021, Simone Biles shocked the world with her withdrawal from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics citing “mental health” as her rationale. Mental health remains a taboo subject within the realm of professional sports, and is often devalued, in stark contrast to the value placed on physical health. The present study explored Biles’s framing of her withdrawal and publics’ reactions to the withdrawal across two distinct social media platforms. Critical rhetorical analysis was used to analyze the Instagram posts made by Biles and a press conference transcript announcing and reifying her withdrawal, as well as 100 TikTok videos and 1000 comments illustrating publics’ reactions. Findings demonstrate that Biles’s framed her messages through genuineness, responsibility, resistance, and consistency. As a result of the frames used in the withdrawal messages, and the modality allowances afforded on TikTok (e.g., video, text, text and video, stitching), the space for dissent, as well as the ability to critique current power structures was created. From these findings, theoretically I argue that (1) framing theory can be used to create the space for resisting power, reclaiming agency, and challenging attacks of morality, and (2) theorize the ability of public relations to shape broader societal discourse. Practically, this research adds to the public relations literature (1) the value of new frames for image cultivation and the new role of publics for engaging in the acceptance, rejection, or co-creation of frames put forth by organizations and (2) the role of message modality for cultivating discourse and dissent.