INTERNATIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE ‘REGIME CHANGE’ IN PAKISTAN: A COMPARATIVE CONTENT ANALYSIS

Abstract

Pakistan saw yet another major political upheaval in 2022 when a democratically elected prime minister was deposed through a “vote of no- confidence” orchestrated by almost all political parties in the country. The political alliance namely Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDM), an alliance of the political parties which otherwise had, apparently, been at logger heads with each other by having different political manifestoes, claimed the deposition of Mr Imran Khan, the then PM of Pakistan and Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek e Pakistan (PTI), as a “success of democracy”. However, the PTI claimed the process of “no-confidence motion” was a foreign conspiracy helped by local elements in the country. Mr. Imran Khan and the PTI leadership labelled the whole process as a “regime change”. The whole political scenario gained a lot of media attention around the globe. This paper is an attempt to explore and analyze the nature of coverage given to the change of government in Pakistan by international media. We have employed content analysis quantitatively and qualitatively to analyze the news coverage of the Al Jazeera (Qatar), Daily Sabah (Turkey), and The Express Tribune (Pakistan) given to the issue. We have found out that all of the news media outlets reported the issue by remaining neutral, factual and by not taking any sides of the political parties involved. The selected news media outlets did not support the political narrative of PTI or PDM. However, the Daily Sabah slightly favoured Mr. Imran Khan as a politician.