ECSS Paris 2023: OP-SH14
Introduction Anti-doping education across Africa is shaped by structural inequities, limited resources, and inequitable institutional capacity, raising ethical concerns related to fairness, access to knowledge, moral responsibility, and justice in clean sport governance. Contemporary scholarship and international policy frameworks emphasise that effective anti-doping education should move beyond procedural rule transmission towards values-based learning, ethical reasoning, and the development of moral agency. Guided by this perspective, this study examined the levels of anti-doping education and ethical perceptions of doping within a values-based framework among African high-performance athletes participating in the 13th African Games, held in Accra, Ghana. Methods Using an adapted GRADE IT questionnaire (r = 0.89), data were collected from 198 athletes representing 29 countries across 21 sporting codes. Questionnaires were administered in English and distributed across multiple competition venues as well as within the athletes’ village. The distribution was supported by trained fieldworkers to ensure standardised administration and data integrity. Results Findings revealed a significant ethical gap between perceived knowledge and applied moral competence. While self-reported anti-doping knowledge was highest concerning the health side effects of doping, it was lowest regarding the WADA prohibited list, with 21% of respondents reported being not at all informed about the list. Confidence in navigating the anti-doping system was limited indicating reduced ethical autonomy and moral agency. Ethical vulnerability increased when athletes were concerned about their sporting careers and when compliance with anti-doping rules required excessive time or effort. Athletes moderately endorsed the moral legitimacy of anti-doping rules, in the protection of clean sport, but expressed weaker trust in system effectiveness and fairness. Discussion Anti-doping education in Africa remains predominantly informational rather than ethically transformative. The findings expose a justice and equity deficit within current anti-doping education, where procedural knowledge fails to translate into ethical competence or practical moral agency. This indicates the limits of compliance driven paradigms and highlights the need for African contextualised, culturally grounded, values-based education models that prioritise critical reflection, ethical dialogue, moral responsibility, and communicative empowerment. A systemic transformation is required, shifting from reductionist, enforcement orientated strategies towards educational redesign and capacity building approaches that cultivate ethical competence, agency and sustainable integrity in clean sport systems.
Read CV Heather Morris-EytonECSS Paris 2023: OP-SH14
Introduction AI applications in sports spectating are profoundly reshaping the audience experience (Memmert, 2025). Simultaneously, academia is reflecting on the ethical challenges and societal impacts of emerging digital technologies (Brady et al., 2022). The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Go (Weiqi) livestreams marks a significant integration of AI within sports. While AI creates an "AI-centric spectating flow," it tends toward technological determinism. This study examines two research questions: (1) What is the structure of AI-centered spectating flows via representative samples? (2) What are the symbiotic relations and ethical issues within Miah's (2017) Digital Ideology framework? Methods To address the research questions, the sample comprises 42 hours of Go livestream footage from classic and contemporary matches, including over 20,000 words of real-time chat logs and post-match commentary. Regarding the analysis procedure, the researchers first employed qualitative content analysis, identifying AI evaluative elements, stakeholders, and related themes through manual coding, subsequently applying ethical issue mapping to construct a structured ethical framework for normative discussion. Results (1) AI-centric spectating flow can be described as follows: AI establishes an evaluative reference basis--comprising win rates, point leads, Blue Spots, and variation graphs--to organize and dominate the viewing process. AI outputs define situational reality and endgame rhythms, while commentators and audiences synchronize their judgments with these real-time updates. (2) Drawing on Miah's digital ideology, symbiotic spectating is conceptualized as a framework where human mediation transforms AI references into intelligible narratives and normative pressures, defining spectating ethics as a collaborative product of the human community under AI-referenced conditions. (3) Mapping identifies key ethical tensions across three domains: epistemic accountability regarding verifiability and uncertainty-communication, the conditioning of agency under centralized authority, and evaluative hegemony driven by deterministic conclusions. Discussion Miah’s digital ideology provides a post-humanist blueprint for symbiosis. Ethical mapping transitions the understanding of spectating flows from an AI-dominated descriptive reality to a symbiotic normative imperative. By conceptualizing the spectating flow construct as an analytical tool, this study establishes a prospective framework for competitive scenarios with high AI definitional authority to counter technological determinism and transition toward symbiotic governance. References Miah, A. (2014). Marres, N. (2015). Miah, A. (2017). Brady, C., et al. (2021). Pietraszewski, R., et al. (2025). Lin, C. L., et al. (2025). Memmert, D. (Ed.). (2025).
Read CV Yue PanECSS Paris 2023: OP-SH14