Shabir Hussain

Bahria University | BU · Media Studies

This article combines quantitative and qualitative analysis to investigate the reporting of the Taliban conflict in Pakistan media and finds the coverage escalatory and elitist from the peace journalism perspective. While the security-related aspects of the conflict are highlighted, the problems of victims are ignored. The data for this study were...

This study combined the key findings of a dozen empirical studies with an original qualitative investigation aimed at understanding the dynamics of conflict journalism in Pakistan. The author devised an original contextual model and tested its applicability in five different conflicts of varying intensity. The study found that conflict journalism i...

This paper investigates the existing journalistic practices in three deadly conflicts in Pakistan and also proposes corrective peace-oriented media strategies. Based on semi-structured interviews with journalists, analysts and stakeholders involved in the religiously inspired Taliban conflict, separatist-led Balochistan conflict and the ethno-polit...

This study offers a quantitative analysis of the coverage of Taliban conflict in the four leading newspapers of Pakistan and Afghanistan through the perspective of war and peace journalism—developed by Johan Galtung and adopted by many scholars. Consistent with the existing literature, the researcher found that both the English and vernacular press...

This study examines the online harassment faced by political journalists in Pakistan on Twitter, specifically focusing on the actions of users affiliated with various political parties. By selecting the 12 most active journalists on Twitter, we combined both content and textual analyses to examine comments posted on their tweets. Drawing upon the t...

This study explores the application of social media in a violent conflict and examines the role that Twitter can play in communicative processes in light of peacebuilding practices. It bridges a gap in communication research by conducting a war/peace framing analysis on Twitter regarding the second deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan. Our result...

In this study, the researchers have investigated the practice of intermedia citations in the leading newspapers of India and Pakistan over an extending time period from 2005 to 2022. The case of these two countries is important because relationships between them have been acrimonious since the division of the subcontinent in 1947 over a number of c...

This article tests the key arguments of indexing theory by analysing how the press of seven countries reported Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021. The seven countries represent a mix of democratic (US, UK, India and Pakistan) and authoritarian governments (Russia, China and Iran). In a marked similarity, we found that press of the two types...

In this study, we examined the trolling of female journalists on Twitter in Pakistan. Through quantitative and qualitative content analysis, we found the female journalists received offensive comments in which the trolls mocked their gender, profession, and personal lives. Though the trolls affiliated with the government produced more hate, opposit...

This study analyzes the perspectives of journalists on the reporting of a civil rights movement known as Pashtun Tahafuz Movement in the Pakistani media. The movement was started by the people of tribal areas to demand an end to the existing state policies on the US-led “war on terror” amidst calls for institutional reforms in the region. The study...

In this chapter, I analyze the various theoretical approaches to peace journalism. While these approaches have significantly contributed to the relevant scholarship, some arrangements are still required to apply these in the non-western scenarios. In this regard, I argue that critical pragmatism is better suited to address the queries relating to t...

In this study, the researchers analyzed the state of media freedom in Pakistan during the populist regime of Imran Khan from August 2018 till April 2022. For this purpose, semistructured interviews were conducted with senior journalists of prominent newspapers and TV channels in the country. The researchers found that journalists were under immense...

This article analyzes the perspective of journalists on the media coverage of climate change crisis in Pakistan. For this purpose, 26 journalists who were responsible for climate related events were interviewed. Overall, the study found that professional and economic factors were responsible for the lack of media interest in this important topic. P...

In this study, we present a contextual model for analyzing the escalatory and de-escalatory trends in media reporting of seven conflicts in Pakistan. For this purpose, we combined findings from both survey and content analysis. While the survey helped to examine the journalists’ perceptions about the security threats of conflicts and the factors th...

In this study, we analyze the state of information warfare on Twittersphere between India and Pakistan in the wake of Pulwama attack in Kashmir region and the subsequent surgical strikes by Indian forces inside Pakistan. We selected two leading Twitter hashtags on the conflict from the two countries each. A total of 20,000 tweets were manually anal...

Following seminal study on journalistic attitudes towards wars and peace journalism, in this study we investigated the perceptions of conflict reporters in the three most deadly countries in the world including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. A total of 317 journalists participated in this study. Though generally we found support for the earlier st...

In this study, the researcher examines some of the key arguments in the scholarship on media-government relations by analyzing press reporting of four different events in the securitized context of Pakistan. For this purpose, framing analysis of one elite English newspaper Dawn and one popular Urdu newspaper daily Jang was conducted. Overall, the r...

This study analyzes the scholarship on the classification of war and peacemaking potential of media in the conflict-ridden milieu of Pakistan. Borrowing from peace studies and the existing journalistic practices in the country, the researchers present and empirically test a new model for evaluating conflict journalism in terms of its escalatory and...

This study proposes a classification framework for conflict journalism with respect to its potential for conflict escalation and de-escalation in Pakistan—a country marred by a number of deadly conflicts. While building on the existing literature, the study proposes the varying levels of intensity of a conflict and the resulting escalatory and de-e...

Abstract: This study combines critical textual analysis with field observations to investigate how Pakistani media have covered the ongoing conflict with the Taliban in the North-West of the country. Using framing theory as its theoretical basis, the study found that the Pakistani Taliban are portrayed as chiefly responsible for the ongoing violenc...

This study examines the role of national media of Pakistan in terms of escalation/ de-escalation of the ethno-political conflict in Karachi. The researchers analyzed both print media and electronic media (television) for this purpose. Two leading television channels (Geo TV and Dunya TV), two English dailies (Dawn and The Nation) and two Urdu daili...

Foreign policy is considered as one the important factors in media framing of various national and international issues and events. Building on the existing literature regarding the relationship between media framing and foreign policy, the present study investigates that how leading American, Indian, Chinese and Pakistani press frame Sino-Pak rela...

This study offers a unique perspective to the analysis of conflict communication by applying all the three strands of critical discourse analysis as varyingly advocated by Fairclough and Van Dijk to investigate the reporting Taliban and Balochistan conflicts in Pakistan media. Through textual analysis and detailed interviews with reporters, editors...

Qur’an and war media: Towards a more constructed approach to conflict reporting  Dr Shabir Hussain  Yasar Arafat Abstract: This study critiques the existing journalistic practices for being deficit in ensuring constructive reporting of wars and conflicts. Though the available academic scholarship developed at the Westernized settings offer a num...

This study investigates the four major wars between India and Pakistan in the past 52 years in one Pakistani popular and one elite newspaper. Through the textual analysis technique, it was found that Pakistan print media applied nationalistic and highly patriotic approaches instead of doing professional and objective reporting on the four wars in t...

If the focus of peace journalism is to press for quality journalism during conflict reporting which will ultimately contribute to peace, then the findings of this study show that the available reporting on the Balochistan conflict passes the litmus test. The coverage is pro-people, and the reporters are aware of their responsibility to society. Des...