Pakistan Armed Forces Editorial Framing and Press-Military Ties

The article deals mainly with the framing of the Pakistan Armed Forces in Pakistan’s English elite newspapers’ editorials. Three of the very popular Pakistani newspapers i.e., Dawn, The Nation and The News were selected for this purpose. The editorials from 27 November 2010 to 27 November 2019 were studied to analyze the valence of Pakistan Armed Forces by applying quantitative content Analysis. 814 editorials in total were studied in the newspapers, 300 in Dawn, 346 in The Nation and 168 in The News by using a simple random sampling method. The result of the quantitative content analysis found that Pakistan Armed Forces were framed in the light of opposing valence in selected military tenures. The military regime of General Kayani received the maximum coverage as well as the maximum opposing coverage in all three military tenures i.e., Tenure I – General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani (27 Nov 2010 to 27 Nov 2013), Tenure II – General Raheel Shareef (27 Nov 2013 to 27 Nov 2016) and Tenure III – General Qamar Javed Bajwa (27 Nov 2016 to 27 Nov 2019). The study identified the fact that the mainstream English Newspapers were able to publicly criticize the Armed Forces during the period under review, showing that the Pakistani military is not able to wield influence on the press and the relationship between two of the most important institutions in Pakistan is not in the hands of the military. It spoke volumes about how rotten things were between two of the institutions of the State that matter; The Press and the Military.