Representation of Political Marches in The Headlines of Selected English Newspapers

Abstract

This article analyses the notion of discursivity in the headlines of selected English newspapers of Pakistan in construction of the phenomenon of ‘political marches’ launched by Pakistani politicians before the election on the twist of the history when deep state was in its struggle to counter the two mainstream political parties of Pakistan. In this regard, three English newspapers (Dawn, The News International and The Nation) were selected for the current study. In concern to media language in Pakistani press, it is commonly shared notion that media plays its role positively and has no hidden agendas to achieve. However, the study was conducted with the proposition that instead of producing factual information, media discourses serve the purpose of manipulating the ideas of the readership. To study this phenomenon, it has been explored that how political marches are socially, discursively and linguistically represented in the selected Pakistani English newspapers. In this respect, the news headlines have been analyzed at text (description) level focusing on the use of metaphor, metonymy, modality, lexical choices, and nominalization in the selected headlines. Additionally, the news headlines have been analyzed at broader social and political context in order to find ideological underpinnings incorporated in selected media discourse. Fairclough’s (1989) three-dimensional model has been used for the analysis of this study which leads to the conclusion that discourse producers exercise a constant and systematic strategy of discursive and exclusionary nature towards political quarters of their concern to regulate the opinion of their readership.