Framing vulnerability: how Pakistani English newspapers covered Tharparkar drought and famine

Abstract

Drought and famine, the creeping natural phenomena, have been frequently occurring disaster in Tharparkar, Sindh. The 2014 drought and famine were reported to be the lethal disasters, as it had taken the lives of scores of humans and animals. Additionally, it had caused serious damages to the human health and assets. The study was set out to examine the news framing of the 2014 drought and famine. It further analyzed the newspaper treatment and pattern; the prominent and less prominent generic frames. Also, the study examined the changes in the occurrence of generic frames during 2014.Moreover, it was assessed that whether a news story was framed episodically or thematically. Framing theory was used as the main theoretical framework whereas agenda setting theory was used for the basic understanding of the issue prominence. For the analysis, two National English Dailies were chosen; Dawn and The Nation. The quantitative content analysis was administered and a code sheet was devised, comprised of generic frames. The study findings revealed that the coverage of Dawn and The Nation was more or less similar in presenting the disaster, although few differences existed too. It was explored that Dawn has given more news coverage than The Nation. Impact frame was the most prominent; Cause and Human Interest frames were second dominant; political and blame frames were present in moderate amount and the least employed frame was noted to be economic frame in the selected newspapers. Additionally, most of the times, news stories were framed thematically in the selected newspapers.