How Sushant Singh Rajput's death set off a rumour mill

Sushant Singh Rajputs death by suicide shook the entire nation We seemed ill equipped to accept the loss of a superstar who appeared to have everything going for him Certain television channels went into overdrive and multiple theories cropped up Rajputs girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty and her family were accused of siphoning off his money and even poisoning himIt has now emerged that most allegations were made without any evidence Yet thousands of viewers believed what the rumour mills churned out on social media each day WhySyeda Zainab AkbarTo find the answer a group of social media researchersmdashSyeda Zainab Akbar Ankur Sharma Himani Negi Anmol Panda and Joyojeet Palmdashcollaborated in July to study the media content surrounding Rajputs unfortunate demise They had just completed a study on the spread of misinformation during the COVID19 lockdown and felt that the patterns in the reportage around Rajputs death the timing and style of false facts would show differences between misinformation around a health issue and an issue involving a celebrity Once we started looking at the story it became a lot more complex We got sucked deeper It ended up becoming a fulllength paper said Pal an associate professor of information at the University of MichiganJoyojeet PalThe researchers created a detailed timeline of all the key events news coverage Twitter activity and key persons who were discussed in the news They studied social media data spanning three months from June 14 to September 12 Over 7000 YouTube videos and tweets from about 12000 politicians and 3200 media professionals formed a part of their study They also mapped out the misinformation debunked by fact checkers They wanted to see who was engaging with Rajputs death the most how and when They extracted textual data from said tweets to understand the content that was being postedAnkur SharmaAt first the television channels talked about mental health Within a week some channels had started talking about a conspiracy By midJuly there was a systematic targeting of the Mumbai Police and the Maharashtra government explained Pal adding that although it looked like Rajputs death would become a talking point during the campaigning for the upcoming Bihar elections politicians from the state didnt pursue the issue What politicians did do was change the discourse around the case by referring to it as murder rather than suicide After midJuly it became pointedly about Rhea By August the targeting moved to Bollywoods drug problem added PalHimani NegiThe viewers and their engagement are to be blamed too Pal and the others found that viewers consistently gave higher viewing to stories about Rajput on YouTube and Twitter In other words the Indian public is definitely into this story and the media is reacting to that said Pal Demand and supply interacted with each other to give rise to a range of toxic narratives surrounding Rajputs death one of them being that the people around him were responsible for his demiseAnmol PandaThe researchers also found that the vast majority of victimsmdashpeople whose lives reputations privacy were and continue to be impinged upon during the coveragemdashare women Chakraborty for instance was called a gold digger a black magician a harlot and more Even though similar suicides have occurred in the past involving actresses they never got the kind of traction Rajputs did noted Pal For instance take the deaths of Pratyusha Banerjee and Jiah Khan Both died by suicideSpeaking truth to power is not an easy task though Pal and the other researchers are being viciously trolled on Twitter We have already been doxed said Pal adding that although they expected some backlash they didnt anticipate it would be this intenseThe researchers also found that the vast majority of victimsmdashpeople whose lives reputations privacy were and continue to be impinged upon during the coveragemdashare women Chakraborty for instance was called a gold digger a black magician a harlot and more Even though similar suicides have occurred in the past involving actresses they never got the kind of traction Rajputrsquos did noted Pal For instance take the deaths of Pratyusha Banerjee and Jiah Khan Both died by suicideKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news