Abstract
The media’s tendency to widely represent conflicts, through legitimization or de- legitimization, makes us believe that media narratives may not be perceived as ‘neutral stances’ for the public consumption. This study investigates the policy of a mainstream newspaper, The News International (NI), in Pakistan and discursive strategies manipulated by its editorial writers to portray the Arab Spring. It, specifically, examines how the selected newspaper editorials thematically constructed the uprising; (re) formulated the public opinion by echoing the Arab Spring-centred perspectives; and mostly backed the revolting protesters against the dictatorial rules in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Syria. The data consist of purposefully selected editorials, which were published between January 2011 and December 2012. This particular timeframe has been distinguished for peak media coverage of the events. The qualitative data (editorial content) are analysed by using NVivo. Through discourse analysis approach, it is revealed that editorial writers employed several recurrent themes (e.g., protests, democracy, horror) to project a positive image of the protesters’ movement and fully utilised their prerogative in constructing a ‘pro-Arab Spring’ discourse. This study concludes that such ‘opinion discourses’ serve as an eye-opener to the role of media in representing conflicts from different angles while staying in different societies. It also provides insights into the ways newspapers (dis) empower readers by promoting certain factions of a conflict and devaluing others.
Highlights
In today’s world of contemporary media, reality is controlled by media narratives
This study investigates the policy of a mainstream newspaper, The News International (NI), in Pakistan and discursive strategies manipulated by its editorial writers to portray the Arab Spring
It explores media representation (NI) in times of the Arab Spring conflict and confirms the presence of several recurring discourse themes. It demonstrates the way editorial writers employed discursive themes to propagandise ‘change’ in the countries of the Arab Spring by endorsing the protesters’ demands through positive beliefs and disapproving the decade-old authoritative through negative beliefs
Summary
In today’s world of contemporary media, reality is controlled by media narratives. Day-to-day events are produced which carry certain ideological implications and play ideological roles of producing “empowered readers”. Media products in making decisions and choices discursively position readers By constructing such powerful narratives of who ‘we’ are, the media are involved in the practice of separating ‘us’ from ‘them’ or ‘others’ who do not understand or share what ‘we’ believe as true (Fulton, 2005a). The hidden power of media discourse, which is reflected in activities such as news reporting and tendencies adopted to produce events, has cumulative effects and operates through specific ways of handling causality, agency and placing readers (Fairclough, 2013). It is invariably persuasive and widely circulated as it (re) shapes public opinion (Talbot, 2007). Some debatable events are put on the public agenda, while others are omitted, in order to draw the readers’ attention towards such events and highlight their significance publically (Fulton, 2005b)
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