1-13 National Media Discourse On Foreign Visits In Pakistan Implications For Public Diplomacy

Abstract

Using media framing theory and drawing on the lines of public diplomacy, the current study aims to examine how the news media in Pakistan framed and judged the visits of officials to the United States and China. As a public diplomacy instrument, official visits of political leaders highly rely on news media coverage for their legitimacy. Using inductive framing as a theoretical approach and qualitative discourse analysis as a methodological approach, it examined the editorial framing of the Pakistani officials’ visits to China and the United States in the English press, namely The News International and The Nation of Pakistan, from 2008 to 2015. Findings reveal that the elite press framed the visits to US and China in strikingly different frames. The visits to the US were predominantly constructed by employing a security frame with an overwhelmingly negative tone towards the United States. In contrast, the visits to China were overwhelmingly framed using a development frame with an overall favorable stance towards China. The findings are elaborated on for their implications pertinent to public diplomacy of China and the US towards Pakistan.