Pulwama Attack: A Content Analysis of Media Framing in Indian and Pakistani News Papers' Websites

Abstract

The coverage of media about the attacks by the terrorists plays a vital role in shaping the masses' understanding of the issue. The Pulwama attack is one of its kind, which opens the door for researchers to study various aspects. The incident was carried out on February 14, 2019. This attack is known as a major and big horrific violent attack in the context of Indo-Pakistan relations that provoked a record-high amount of tension between the two countries. The tension between the two countries escalated right after the attack and it jeopardized the whole aspect of peace and prosperity between the two countries. The media of both countries played a great role in setting their own perspectives among the masses.This study mainly focuses on analyzing the content about the attack, published in the print media. The study includes the analysis of framing the attack differently by both the countries’ respective print media. In order to examine the coverage of the attack, the researcher selected one of the topmost newspapers of both states. Daily Dawn from Pakistan and Times of India from India. The researcher studied the content of the stories published from February 14, 2019, to March 31, 2019, and then analyzed them through a qualitative content analysis strategy.This study seeks to evaluate the attack in order to find the answers to the basic research objectives. The main objective of the study is to examine the coverage of the Pulwama attack in Dawn and Times of India and how they both differ in framing the attack respectively. Another objective of this research is to identify the sources and references used by both newspapers in reporting the Pulwama attack. The findings of the study show that the Indian print media covered and present the clashes of both neighboring countries in a negative and provoking manner whereas Pakistani media neutralize the incident and focused on facts only. The frames chosen by Indian media promote sensationalism in the audience.