FRAMING SPORTS AND POWER:A COMPARATIVE CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF FIFA 2022 AND THE CRICKET WORLD CUP 2023

Abstract

The study comparatively investigates the political ideologies behind the international media coverage of two mega sports events, the FIFA World Cup 2022 and the Cricket World Cup 2023. It examines how international governance, interstate conflict, and geopolitical tension were reflected through sports. In this connection, this research deconstructs BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, The Hindustan Times, The India News, Dawn, and The Express Tribune. To deconstruct these international media, the study applies Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a methodology, and the analysis reveals how different international media portrayed the FIFA World Cup 2022 and the Cricket World Cup 2023 differently to subtly show their political biases. It shows that the coverage of the two World Cups by these international media  reflects their political ideologies that may conform to the policies of the states they belong to. Major discourse strategies the media used include: lexical selection, visual representations, rhetorical figures, micro and macro semantic figures, emphasizing and de-emphasizing, and generalizing and specifying the details suiting their agenda. The research concludes that the media’s portrayal of sports events always carries latent political motives and, hence, needs to be evaluated critically. This study opens avenues for further research to deconstruct the underlying agenda of international media behind their coverage of other major sports events such as the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, and the Asian Olympic Games.