Renewed COVID-19 outbreaks, stemming from the highly infectious Delta and Omicron variants, prompted rising fears of a ‘pandemic among the unvaccinated’. To address this prevalent vaccination crisis, media framing communication strategies can amplify the scientific evidence on COVID-19 vaccines to reach diverse geographic and socio-economic communities. The critical role of media framing strategies to engage and encourage large populations regarding vaccine acceptance has been rarely studied, despite growing evidence on vaccine hesitancy. The present study used a multi-method approach (i.e., content analysis and quasi-experiments) that unpacked the framing practices employed by the mainstream media in Pakistan. The findings of the content analysis revealed that the media extensively used uncertainty, conflict, consequences, and action rather than new evidence and reassurance frames in its COVID-19 related campaigns. In a series of quasi-experiments involving 720 participants, we manipulated these six frames of COVID-19 related news coverage (i.e., uncertainty, conflict, consequences, action, new evidence, and reassurance) to investigate the underlying mechanism that influences vaccine acceptance. The findings established that the message-consistent effects of media frames manifesting fear (e.g., consequence and uncertainty) and action cues made receivers more supportive of vaccination. The present study findings theoretically address the calls for a more inclusive “community-health reporting model”, besides offering new evidence on the media framing strategies to deliver more targeted, meaningful, and effective campaigns to raise public acceptance for COVID-19 vaccines.

The 2022 floods in Pakistan, one of the most recent catastrophic natural disasters, highlighted critical vulnerabilities in governance, infrastructure, and climate resilience. This study investigates the framing of the floods in newspapers from the Global North and Global South. The newspapers under investigation included The Guardian, The New York Times, The Times of India, and Dawn. The study used a cross-sectional research design. Under the rubric of framing theory, utilizing quantitative content analysis, the study examines the prevalence of key frames in the press of the Global North and the Global South. The findings revealed a dominance of solution, vulnerability, and responsibility frames. Moreover, the Global North and Global South framed human causes, i.e., larger societal forces, as responsible, rather than natural causes. In addition, the victimization frame is more focused than community-led efforts. Notably, the solutions primarily emphasized international aid and climate adaptation, and other local governance and community adaptation frames. These results underscore the dual role of Global North and Global South media both as advocates for global climate justice and narrators of humanitarian crises, while also highlighting gaps in resilience narratives and local agency. This study contributes to framing theory by exploring the interplay of global and local narratives in disaster reporting. It emphasizes the need for balanced, actionable solutions in media discourse on climate-induced disasters to ensure climate justice.

This study explores the nature of relationship between Socratic questioning and development of critical thinking skills in respective students. Critical thinking skills are considered crucial for individual’s survival in digital era of information processing. Social interaction in classroom is considered beneficial for development of critical thinking skills. It was a correlational research conducted in Provincial public schools of Rawalpindi. Population constituted science teachers teaching at secondary school level and science students of secondary level. Sample of five interactive science teachers was drawn purposively from the population and their respective 125 students studying at grade 10th were also selected to assess the developed skills. Data was collected using two instruments; observation sheet for teachers and observation sheet for students. Reliability coefficient for both instruments were .80 and .82 respectively. Data was analyzed through SPSS calculating Pearson r correlation coefficient. Results shown successive increase in development of student’s reflective thinking and reasoning skills after engaging them in learning via Socratic questioning. It is concluded that Socratic questioning and development of critical thinking are strongly positively correlated. It is suggested to train teachers for better utilization of questioning while teaching science at secondary school level.

In 21st century, the development and assessment of critical and innovative thinking skills is at the core of higher education level programs. For academic institutions, charged with equipping graduates to compete in today’s knowledge economy with growing recognition that individuals need a wide array of skills in order to meet the needs of the modern workplace. In this context, our existing assessment procedures are unable for developing measuring these above mentioned skills and traits with traditional assessment procedures. In this context, a panel survey study was designed to examine the development of critical and innovative thinking skills through an intervention of authentic assessment tasks using learning management system (LMS). A cohort of MPhil students (N=38) was pretested and went through an intervention of two semesters in which ten different tasks were given to students for developing critical and innovative thinking skills. At the end of course assessment tasks were evaluated against a rubric to find the evidence of critical and innovative thinking skills in completing tasks and a post-test of skills was taken. Internal validity threats were controlled during intervention and reliability of scale was ensured (α=.965). The findings of the study highlighted a significant positive change in the development of students ability to draw conclusions (p= .004), decision making (p=.013) and Implementing new ideas (p=.000). The space for creativity and implementing new ideas in given assignment tasks helped students to enhance critical and innovative thinking skills using learning management system at Allama Iqbal Open University.