No more binaries: a case of Pakistan as an anomalistic discourse in American print media (2001–2010)

Abstract

Discourse gives social and physical realities meaning. Individuals, cultures, and states all use discourse to understand who they are, how they live, and how the world works. A similar discourse gained traction in the post-9/11 world. The discourse disseminated through the American media constructed a form of binarism in the guise of the Us vs. Them. This discourse was extended to account for representations of friend or foe. Discourses as mentioned earlier, give meaning to the reality around us. As part of international relations and politics, these discourses are the optimum site for establishing and enacting power and status. To analyze such a negotiation of positions and power in discourse, this research analyzes the American media’s coverage of the former head of the Pakistani state, i.e., (General) President Pervez Musharraf. The corpus comprising 509 articles has been used as the research data. Using the notions of semantic preference and prosody, the study reveals that Musharraf’s identity is fostered more on political lines rather than military, signifying the downplaying of his dictatorship. On the other side, his efforts in the War on Terror are looked upon as dubious and the media coverage is mixed.