Representations of Naya Pakistan: A corpus-based study of Pakistani media discourses

Abstract

The study investigates how Pakistani media discourses represented the populist political rhetoric of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) between 2016 and 2018. Applying the theoretical lens of corpus-based critical discourse analysis to a specially constructed corpus, the study examines how PTI's populist political rhetoric was co-opted by the media to garner public support for it prior to the 2018 elections and then to criticize its performance following electoral victory. The selected corpus comprised news, articles, and headlines published in English newspapers between 2016 and 2018. Based on the analysis, the study identifies linguistic devices and strategies in the media discourses covering PTI's run-up to the elections and ascent to power. It also sheds light on the types of populism exercised by the media in depicting political messages to move from promotion of PTI's vision and rhetoric to critique of its perceived post-election failure to fulfil its promises. Concordance lines and collocation analysis furnish evidence of a shift in the media discourses from pre-election optimism and ideological valorization of the PTI agenda to failure and loss of hope in the PTI government following its assumption of leadership.