Beginning with President Trump’s speech against the national anthem protestors in September 2017, the authors consider how external sociopolitical events interacted with the network structure of the 2017 National Football League (NFL) to alter the salience of member identities and the resultant patterns of protest activity within the league. Using group membership data on the full population of 2,453 football players, the analysis tracks protest participation by membership in race and status groups and by the network variables of degree, betweenness, and closeness centrality. Black and elite players are both overrepresented among protesters throughout the season. The margins of overrepresentation narrowed during an increase in demonstrations after Trump’s first criticisms but had widened by the end of the season. The mean centralities of the protesting groups varied from week to week because of an increase in the salience of the NFL player identity and its interaction with racial identities. In general, protesters had lower mean degree and closeness centralities and a higher mean betweenness centrality than players who abstained from protest. Those who participated in high-risk forms of activism also tended to have lower mean degree and closeness centralities and a higher mean betweenness centrality than those who opted for low-risk demonstrations. These findings indicate that sociopolitical events can implicate different identities, changing their salience in the decision to join or abstain from a social movement.

中文翻译：

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屈膝站立：2017年NFL抗议中的社交网络和身份显着性

从特朗普总统于2017年9月针对国歌抗议者的演讲开始，作者考虑了外部社会政治事件如何与2017年国家橄榄球联盟（NFL）的网络结构相互作用以改变成员身份的重要性以及由此引发的抗议活动模式联盟。使用有关2,453位足球运动员的全部人口的团体成员资格数据，该分析按种族和地位组的成员资格以及程度，中间性和紧密程度的网络变量跟踪抗议参与。整个赛季中，黑人和精英球员在示威者中的人数都过多。在特朗普的首次批评之后，示威活动增加时，代表人数过多的边缘有所缩小，但到本赛季末已经扩大了。由于NFL球员身份的显着性及其与种族身份的相互作用的增加，抗议团体的平均中心地位每周都有所不同。一般而言，抗议者比弃权者低，他们的平均程度和亲密性中心以及更高的平均中间度中心。与那些选择低风险示威活动的人相比，参加高风险形式的行动主义的人往往具有较低的平均程度和亲密性中心以及较高的平均中间性中心。这些发现表明，社会政治事件可以暗示不同的身份，从而改变其决定加入或退出社会运动的重要性。