Analyzing Media Coverage on the fall of Kabul A Critical Analysis of National and International Newspapers

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the portrayal of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in the news coverage of Pakistani newspaper Dawn, the U.S. newspaper, the New York Times, a Russian newspaper, the Moscow Times, and the Indian newspaper, The Hindu during the fall of Kabul from 16 July to 14 September 2021. The purpose of the study is to investigate how the newspapers of the selected four countries cover the withdrawal in the light of their respective national interest. This study analyzes the media and government relationship, whereas the study mainly revisits the application of ‘indexing theory’ in the context of the media’s coverage of the issue of Afghanistan quantitatively and qualitatively to determine the soft or otherwise critical relationship between media and government. The results, which are mixed in their nature, suggest that the elites’ differences on the issue of the US forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, coupled with the state of uncertainty over the issue of Afghanistan. Revisiting the Indexing Theory in the context of activated oppositional voices in the United States, hence the US newspaper The New York Times, and even the Russian newspaper, the Moscow Times, were found more critical to the governments than Dawn and The Hindu, which highlighted the issue of Afghanistan more in the context of ‘proximity’ extended support to their respective governments respectively.