War or Peace Journalism on the Perspective of Terrorism in Pakistan

Abstract

Quantitative content is used in this study regarding analysis of Pakistan's mainstream English language elite newspapers with regard to their handling of the "War on Terrorism". The study relates to the theoretical framework and Galtung's war and peace joumalism model (1974). Framing theory used for the analysis of different types of news stories and articles published by Daily Dawn and The News International. Results show that both the newspapers predominantly applied war joumalism approaches and framed the Taliban as foe amid a range of different episodic frames involving terrorist attacks, sectarian violence, military statement, political statements, military statement, IDPs the Taliban and the Bomb blast, and peace efforts for ending one of the longest wars in history. Results also indicate that there is a monopoly of elite sources when it comes to the framing of the "War on Terrorism" while news stories often adhere to the structure and contours ofPakistan's official policy for the war.