Coverage of Political Unrest in Pakistani English Newspapers: A Corpus-Based Content Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55737/qjssh.553197532Keywords:
Corpus, Pakistani English Newspapers, Biasness, Frequently used Words, Content AnalysisAbstract
The newspaper is a traditional channel of information interchange between the public and the government, as well as a free platform for the general public to commend and criticize the actions and policies of the government. This article aims to study the frequency of lexical choices and positive and negative words in the news coverage of political unrest by Pakistani English newspapers using corpus-based content analysis. The data for analysis was collected from the official websites of three Pakistani English newspapers: Daily Times, The Nation, and Dawn. The collected data has been analyzed quantitatively using the corpus software AntConc. Twenty news items were selected for news corpus with purposive sampling from 5th April 2023 to 30th September 2023. The findings reveal that Pakistani English newspapers use more negative words in the coverage of political matters, which do not represent the subjectivity of the newspapers' publishers but provide trustworthy news about political uncertainty to the audience. Moreover, this study explores the agenda of Pakistani English newspaper media through the Agenda Setting theory by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw (1972). Additionally, this study demonstrates how much realistically Pakistani English publications depict political events that are causing uncertainty.
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