THE PORTRAYAL OF TALIBAN IN THE EDITORIALS OF ENGLISH PRESS OF PAKISTAN: AN EVALUATION FROM 11 SEPTEMBER 2001 TO 30 SEPTEMBER 2007
Abstract
The invasion of United Sates and Allies in Afghanistan after 9/11, it becomes center of attraction for International media outlets. Taliban as former successors of Afghanistan and deadliest insurgents against the U.S. invasion and had influenced significantly socio-economic and security situation of Pakistan. Taliban widely debated in Pakistan among policy makers, security institutions, politicians, academia and media. This article analyzed the portrayal of Taliban in the English Press in the first seven years of U.S. invasion in Afghanistan. For this purpose, a qualitative study is conducted to analyze the editorials of three leading English language newspapers of Pakistan; The News, The Nation and Dawn from 11 September, 2001 to 30th September, 2007. Accumulatively 1537 editorials are analyzed which reflect Taliban in the latent and manifested context in editorials. The coding sheet framed Taliban in the content and context as positive, negative and neutral. The finding of study revealed that all three leading English newspapers of Pakistan; The News, The Nation and Dawn significantly projected Taliban negative and neutral whereas they got meager positive portrayal. However, studies (Nadeem, 2017; Rasul et. al., 2016) assert that it is in line with State policy, which reflect them as terrorist and threat to the internal security of Pakistan