Escalation in Kashmir Conflict after Burhan Wani’s Killing: A Comparative Study of the Coverage by Pakistani and Indian Press

Abstract

The study aims at analyzing the conflict coverage of Kashmir in the mainstream English press of India and Pakistan along with and draws its theoretical support from Galtung’s ideas of peace and war journalism. The main concern of the study is to test the hypothesis that war frames are given prominence over peace frames while covering the case of Burhan Wani in the Indian and Pakistani press. The coverage was analyzed through the content analysis of news stories and columns which were published on the national, international, and opinion pages of The Daily Dawn and The Daily Times of India from July 8, 2016, to Oct 8, 2016. A total of 121 stories were randomly selected from a total sample frame of 242 items for content analysis. To add a qualitative perspective to the study, in-depth interviews of 12 purposively selected Indian and Pakistani journalists who had covered Kashmir Conflict were also conducted. Both statistical analysis of the content of selected dailies and qualitative interviews supports the hypothesis. Consequently, the coverage given to the Kashmir Conflict by Indian and Pakistani press contributed to escalating the conflict instead of deescalating it.