CONSTRUCTION OF MEDIA DISCOURSE ABOUT JAMMU & KASHMIR CONFLICT

Abstract

The study intends to explore the dominantly employed war and peace frames by the Indian and Pakistani press along with analyzing the selection of lexical items used for constructing media discourse about the Kashmir Conflict. CDA framework proposed by Van Dijk and the theoretical ideas of Galtung’s Peace and War Journalism were employed to comprehend the discourse. Critical Discourse Analysis of news stories from The Nation, Dawn (Pakistani press) along with The Hindu and Times of India (Indian press) is carried out. The study concluded that the Indian press used war framing more dominantly and constructed a discourse regarding Kashmir conflict in which it was portrayed as an intra-state conflict of the Indian State. Pakistani press used peace framing more dominantly for the coverage of Kashmiri’s right of self-determination and developed a discourse in which Kashmir was portrayed as an inter-state conflict which could affect the stability of the whole region.