| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation research investigated framing in the Pakistani English-speaking press in the aftermath of the Salala incident in late-2011, during which 24 Pakistani soldiers died and over a dozen were wounded. Occurring only a few months after the American raid to kill Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil, the Salala border post incident had significant reverberating effects on Pakistani-U.S. relations including the closure of the two main NATO supply routes to Afghanistan for over seven months as well as the delay of foreign aid and security assistance to Pakistan. As part of this study, the researcher conducted a comprehensive content analysis of articles published by five Pakistani English-speaking news outlets including Dawn, The Nation, Daily Regional Times of Sindh, Balochistan Express and Frontier Post, in order to evaluate media usage of deductive generic frames as well as issue-specific national and regional frames. The content analysis demonstrated that the conflict and attribution of responsibility frames were the most prominently used frames in the Pakistani news media followed by the human interest frame, the morality frame and finally, the economic consequences frame. The results of the research showed that the national press was as likely as the regional press to characterize the incident in terms of the regional frames of local insurgency, local politics and local impact. Dawn used the national foreign policy and national terrorism framing items more than the regional press. However, Balochistan Express and Frontier Post were more likely to use the national border security/sovereignty framing item. | en_US |
