Awarding of Citizenship to Afghan and Bengali Refugees: a Comparative Analysis of Pakistan's Print and Social Media Frames

Abstract

This research focuses on the framing of Afghan and Bengali refugees in the mainstream print and social media as a result of the announcement made by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, for awarding citizenship to both Afghan and Bengali refugees. A comparative analysis explores the cross-media examination of print and social media framing regarding the respective issue. The results of the quantitative content analysis revealed that social media adopted more pro-citizenship frames by portraying the refugees as compared to the print media, which employed more anti-citizenship frames. Furthermore, the research highlights that social media adopted more humanitarian and legal framework topics to lay emphasis on the suffering of refugees. The Urdu newspapers framed the Afghan and Bengali citizenship issue in a more pro-citizenship manner as compared to the English newspapers. The mainstream print media employed more unfavorable frames to accentuate the refugees as an economic burden, as compared with the social media.The political apprehension and burden on the economy is the foremost rationale for the aversion to granting citizenship rights to the refugees.