This study proposes a classification framework for conflict journalism with respect to its potential for conflict escalation and de-escalation in Pakistan—a country marred by a number of deadly conflicts. While building on the existing literature, the study proposes the varying levels of intensity of a conflict and the resulting escalatory and de-escalatory coverage as important factors in the process. Through content analysis and focus group discussion, it was found that de-escalatory coverage is inversely proportional to the intensity of a conflict in terms of its perceived threats to national security. Secondly it was found that the coverage was spread across a range of thematic frames though certain perspectives got more prominence as compared to others. Noting the variations in the presence of peace journalism, the study concludes that critical pragmatic approach to peace journalism is better suited to address queries relating to its theory and practice than other approaches because it accommodates the retention of peace as a value and at the same is pragmatic and hence honors the requirements of journalistic profession.

In this study, we analyze the state of information warfare on Twittersphere between India and Pakistan in the wake of Pulwama attack in Kashmir region and the subsequent surgical strikes by Indian forces inside Pakistan. We selected two leading Twitter hashtags on the conflict from the two countries each. A total of 20,000 tweets were manually analyzed. Contrary to the existing scholarship on digital information warfare, we found citizens from both countries produced most of the content. Among the citizens, those Twitter handles that showed affiliations with the heads of governments that we consider as trolls were the leading contributors. Moreover, the study found that contributors from the two countries mainly posted on their own hashtags and did not engage in counter-arguments with the contributors from other country. This resulted in overwhelming support for the two countries in their own assorted hashtags and outright criticism in the hashtags originating from the other country.

This paper investigates the existing journalistic practices in three deadly conflicts in Pakistan and also proposes corrective peace-oriented media strategies. Based on semi-structured interviews with journalists, analysts and stakeholders involved in the religiously inspired Taliban conflict, separatist-led Balochistan conflict and the ethno-political conflict in Karachi, six strategies have been identified. These include highlighting the problems of sufferers and contextualization of the Taliban conflict; inclusion of multi-perspectives and highlighting the voices of peacemakers in the Balochistan conflict; humanization and solution-oriented coverage of the ethno-political conflict in Karachi. While the journalists agreed these strategies were very much in line with their professional duties, the analysts and stakeholders hoped the proposed journalistic practices would lead to better understanding and facilitate resolution of the three conflicts. Based on the findings of this article, the researchers advocate a pragmatic form of peace journalism that reflects the ground realities as compared to the more critical form of peace journalism that becomes difficult to be practiced in conflict scenarios.

This article combines quantitative and qualitative analysis to investigate the reporting of the Taliban conflict in Pakistan media and finds the coverage escalatory and elitist from the peace journalism perspective. While the security-related aspects of the conflict are highlighted, the problems of victims are ignored. The data for this study were collected through content analysis, discourse analysis and interviews with conflict reporters and analysts. The key findings of this study are quite consistent with the existing peace journalism scholarship that in conflict where national interests are involved, media become nationalistic and patriotic, leaving behind the considerations of quality and good journalism.

This article analyzes the perspective of journalists on the media coverage of climate change crisis in Pakistan. For this purpose, 26 journalists who were responsible for climate related events were interviewed. Overall, the study found that professional and economic factors were responsible for the lack of media interest in this important topic. Professionally, journalists said they were required to report on newsworthy events. Since apart from the occasional climate related destructive events, most of the climate news lacked drama, sensationalism and political consequences—thus not fulfilling the news selection criteria and hence were ignored. Likewise, media in Pakistan is facing financial crunch. Climate news needed dedicated reporters and lot of resources. Comparatively, political news was easy to get and attract larger audiences. As a solution, the journalists called for changes in the existing political discourse on the issue and emphasized that media should play a more socially responsible role to highlight the enormity of situation in Pakistan.

Following seminal study on journalistic attitudes towards wars and peace journalism, in this study we investigated the perceptions of conflict reporters in the three most deadly countries in the world including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. A total of 317 journalists participated in this study. Though generally we found support for the earlier study, the analysis shows journalists engage in wider practices than predicted that overlap war and peace journalism approaches. A closer examination showed that journalists favored active war journalism practices and passive peace journalism practices. Finally, we did not find that journalistic experience and contextual factors influenced preferences towards war and peace journalism substantially.