Pakistani Print Media and Climate Literacy: A Study of Formal-Stylistic Frame Analysis During 2018-19

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine climate and environment news articles in two newspapers in Pakistan, and to identify how these articles are framed using formal-stylistic approaches i.e., episodic and thematic framing. The goal of the research was to determine whether the print media in Pakistan is contributing to climate literacy through the framing of climate and environment news stories. The present study employed qualitative frame analysis for exploring episodic and thematic framing of news regarding climate and environment. It investigated how print media covered news stories about climate and environment over the period of 2018 to 2019, which was selected because they coincided with significant climate change events. The study discovered that the predominant framing approach employed in both Dawn and Jang newspapers is episodic, with 87.4% in Dawn and 98.6% in Jang. Whereas, in Dawn, the thematic framing approach constitutes 12.6% while Jang's usage is merely 1.4%. The most common themes under the episodic framing approach during the selected time period were news reports about the harmful effects of climate and environmental disasters and the actions of government officials and ministers in relation to climate and environmental issues. However, these news stories lacked any context of climate change and did not contribute to enhancing climate literacy.