Cricket and Conspiracies.

 1. On Jingoism and Cricket: 

With the incredibly niche of cricket tournament, the Asia Cup kicking off the season in a matter of days, part of national Indian news is the speed with which the tickets are being snatched up. While we've already seen similar discourse around the Ticketmaster x Taylor Swift frenzy, with the case of expensive India games being sold out within seconds mirroring a tale we know all too well, there is a sinister underbelly to these workings. This includes a culmination of corruption, including parties such as resellers and the (most popular and well funded cricketing agency) Indian cricketing body (The BCCI, or Board of Control for Cricket in India) but also lays entrenched within national politics and instances of misinformation to the Indian public fueling further jingoism and divisive opinions. 

With ruling party members reflecting immense levels of (Hindu, right-wing) patriotism as well as a keen interest in the sport of cricket, there is a messy intertwining of politics and sport which has been exemplified. This goes to the extent of naming the largest and newest stadium in India the Narendra Modi Stadium after the Prime Minister, and having former BJP members into the highest ranks of the cricketing boards. Vraga and Bode offer a description of "best available evidence" (138) which melds neatly into the concept of media manipulation and rules of control operating in a grey area that feeds off confusion regarding accuracy, and a lack of options to turn to. With several Twitter and Instagram users complaining under the #IndiaVsPakistan of their (resoundingly similar to the Ticketmaster x Swift experience) inability to secure tickets for the fabled match. In encountering a crowd verified and publicly fact checked case of misinformation, there is room to exaggerate and promote the already frenzied event, not only for private monetary gain, but to capitalize on the jingoist, racist and hyper-nationalist sentiments surrounding the India vs Pakistan match. Perhaps this may be edging the line between misinformation and conspiracy theorizing, but this is something that's been increasingly concerning to me as of late. 

Here's an ad promoting the match, positioning the match as #TheGreatestRivalry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcI9NYGXUPE&ab_channel=StarSports

2. Maui Fires, Disaster Capitalism and Conspiracies: The recent devastation in Maui produced not only a warning sign of the severity and increasing rapidness with which natural calamities may approach us has been met with several threads on various social media platforms calling it a hoax. More specifically, a government run conspiracy. Harkening Marwick and Lewis' words on sensationalism "driving faulty information flows within communities" (19), the conspiracy originated here on Facebook, and has spiraled online. Thankfully, most news sources are treating this as a warning sign regarding fake news and misinformation, urging readers to be more discerning and fact check, rather than repost. This has been done by the likes of Forbes, USA Today, and The Guardian to name a few. 

While Marwick and Lewis specifically call out and detail the workings of alt-right influencers and their reach, this conspiracy has reached beyond the pale. Relatively apolitical influencers, even family vloggers as pictured below, have dabbled in repackaging the conspiracies to make already bite sized news (in this case, bite sized social media threads) seemingly into a 'best of' highlights reel of the disaster. As mentioned in the section of Data and Society, Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online, the role of the influencer is "as significant nodes in these networks...[they] hold the power to amplify particular messages and make otherwise fringe beliefs get mainstream coverage" (Marwick and Lewis 20), which comes with a certain responsibility that has clearly been eschewed in the case of this conspiracy.  

In diving into the rabbit hole of climate change naysayers coupled with conspiracy theorists, I came up for air thanks to the words of Naomi Klein. She notes, "disasters have become the preferred moments for advancing a vision of a ruthlessly divided world, one in which the very idea of a public sphere has no place at all. Call it disaster capitalism." (Klein 49). While the latest barrage of misinformation sweeping the internet hasn't been catalyzed by the media, the role of the influencer - and then by extension, social media news outlets ranging from YouTube bigwigs such as Philip DeFranco and Keemstar (ew) to TikTok green screen reporters with a couple hundred followers - bear a certain burden in what they are choosing to spread. With audiences' growing mistrust of the mainstream media, and more likely laziness in fact checking and extending beyond Twitter for news updates, is a Community Note or Meta's blurred image and note stating that what we're reading is fake news enough? The public seem to be wanting an alternate reading to these disasters, and "Given the boiling temperatures, both climatic and political, future disasters need not be cooked up in dark conspiracies. All indications are that if we simply stay the current course, they will keep coming with ever more ferocious intensity. Disaster generation can therefore be left to the market's invisible hand." (Klein 58)