Afghan Refugees, Pakistani Media and the State: The Missing Peace

This book explores the Pakistani media's coverage of Afghan refugees and their forced repatriation, analyzing the political, social, and economic forces that influence reporting practices. It proposes a new teleological turn for peace journalism as a deliberative practice that promotes transparency, accountability, and challenging dominant power-proposed narratives. It also highlights the nexus between digital witnessing and peace journalism through the paradigm of cosmopolitanism.

Format: Hardback
Length: 200 pages
Publication date: 20 December 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Drawing on the frameworks of peace journalism, this comprehensive book offers fresh insights into the Pakistani media's coverage of Afghan refugees and their forced repatriation from Pakistan. Conducted over a three-year period, the author delves into the political, social, and economic forces that shape and govern the reporting practices of journalists covering the protracted refugee conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Through a rigorous critical discourse analysis of the structures of journalistic iterability of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, the author identifies four dominant frames and three emerging ones. Moreover, they propose a novel teleological turn for peace journalism, envisioning it as a deliberative practice that promotes transparency and accountability (recognition) while challenging dominant power-proposed narratives and perspectives (resistance). This approach aims to encourage public engagement and participation (cosmopolitan solidarity).

Furthermore, the author prioritizes an analytical approach that conceptualizes the nexus between digital witnessing and peace journalism through the paradigm of cosmopolitanism. The author's findings reveal that routinely accommodated media narratives of security have portrayed Afghan refugees as a 'threat, a 'burden, and the 'other, which, through reinforcement, have become an indisputable reality for the public in Pakistan.

This book is a valuable resource for those interested in studying and practicing journalism as a conscientious communicative practice that aims to inform and engage the very public it seeks to serve.

Weight: 530g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032351001