Power Struggle Between Supreme Court and the Government: Ideological Role of Pakistani Print Media in Representation of Swiss Letter Issue

Abstract

Newspaper headlines constitute an essential part of media discourse, which is an important field of research in Discourse and Communication Studies. Particularly, certain features of news headlines and their role in observing and directing readers’ attention have made the interface between linguistic analysis of newspaper headlines and the opinion building of the readership. In order to explore the ideological role of print media in representation of Swiss Letter Issue which resulted nullification of an elected prime minister of Pakistan by Supreme Court and the next PM of the same political party was also facing the same challenge. Three widely distributed English newspapers (The News International, DAWN and The Nation) have been selected using purposive sampling technique. Designated time ranges between 1st July 2012 and 31st December 2012, very significant pre-election period in Pakistan. To find the coverage given to the issue by the selected newspapers, total 319 related headlines were found. The data were selected through simple random sampling technique. The obtained data has been analysed by using Faiclough’s three-dimenional model of critical discourse analysis, and simple statistical analysis as well. The findings of the study indicate that print media of Pakistan used manipulative strategies in construction of headlines on Swiss Letter Issue and represented the issue in a biased manner.