Abstract
Media is considered as one of the most powerful pillars of a modern state. Having more control
over public discourse, it has more powers of making public opinion. A critical study of media
discourse urges a need of exposing underlying ideologies instead of relying on the surface
analysis of textual and linguistic features. One of the basic assumptions of such studies remains
that power relations are discursive and discourse structures not only index social structures but
social structures are also constructed, maintained, and challenged by discourse structures. In this
regard, media may either enact the discourse of powerful or challenge it. All over the world, the
media discourse structures are determined by its relationship with other groups. Instead of being
factual, it constructs discourse according to a group policy. Pakistan is no exception in this
regard. Although the concept of a free media is not very old here, yet it has assumed
unimaginable powers in a very brief history of its freedom. In recent years, the county has seen
some stronger and louder voices of political and social change than ever before. The August
2014 Azadi and Inqilab Marches and sit-ins of PTI and PAT were significant movements which
influenced a palpable change in politics of the state. Owing to importance of these movements, it
becomes very important to study how they were portrayed by the elite media of the county. This
research planned to study the underlying ideological discourse structures which worked behind
the coloring of the marches in a desired certain way. It applied the ideological square model of
Van Dijk with particular focus on polarization in discourse. The data, i.e. the top stories of the
front pages, was collected from the selected editions of the four major English newspapersDawn, The News, The Nation, and Daily Times. A critical examination of the data rendered that
the media supported status-quo and enacted the discourse of the government instead of resisting
and challenging the existing political and social narrative
Abdul Rafay Khan, Aziz Ullah Khan, Zubair Iqbal. (2019) Hiding „Their‟ Positives and „Our‟ Negatives: An Analysis of English Print Media‟s Coverage of 2014 Islamabad Sit-ins, Balochistan Journal of Linguistics, Volume 7, Issue 1.
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