Abstract
In the twenty first century, television journalism has witnessed immense
development and transformation. News agencies have emerged as global 24-
hours news outlets. The news values and traditions have undergone
considerable change making revenues generation a top priority. This was
consequential upon using language and other semiotic resources like visuals
and sound for incorporating entertainment, sensationalism, suspense and
informality in news. Through these techniques viewers could be attracted and
higher rating figures could be achieved. The broadcast news media industry of
Pakistan has developed a lot after the 2002 media reforms under Musharraf’s
regime. Vast changes have also been observed in both the style and contents of
broadcast news. This research study focuses on increasing trend of
infotainment in Pakistani broadcast news. Using the perspectives of linguistic
and semiotic analysis, this study has documented that nowadays information is
very much mixed with entertainment techniques to make news interesting,
sensational and appealing for viewers. This reflects that the broadcast
journalism has become profit oriented and therefore all possible resources are
exploited to tailor a news discourse which is tinged with subtle infotainment.
