Reporting Conflict: Traditional Media and Social Media Narratives in the Balochistan Conflict (Abstract)

Doing Peace journalism is a difficult thing, especially when the conflict is ongoing.  This study is looking into Balochistan, which represents 44% of Pakistan’s landmass and is rich in mineral and gas wealth. The policies of the Pakistani Government have been to exploit their resources without giving them their due share. This has resulted into an intra-state conflict which has led to a separation/liberation movement.

The conflict has now attained alarming proportions and even the international community is worried about the outcome and possible spillovers.  It has reached a point where even a US congressman has passed a resolution in favor of self-determination for Baloch people.

Hence, the study will be examining the trends of social and traditional media towards peace journalism after the passing of the resolution in the US congress. The study investigates hundred articles from four different Pakistani news papers (traditional media) and thousand tweets from twitter (social media).  The research methodology is based upon the content analysis.

Two different models of peace journalism have been used. Model 1 for traditional media has been derived from Dov Shinar’s five indicators while three passive indicators are drawn from Lee, Maslog and Kim . Model 2 has been used for social media and comprises of Galtung’s four Points on peace journalism which is combined with three passive indicators of Lee, Maslog and Kim. The combination of the latter model has been developed throughout this research.

One striking result from the “Traditional Media” (newspapers) has shown that how the most liberal paper from Pakistan (Dawn) is less solution oriented, whereas the banned newspaper (Baloch Hal) which highlights the Baloch perspective  is more solution oriented. Social media uses various categories to analyze the Peace Journalism, and has shown the stark difference between the category of Baloch activist and Baloch rebel/groups in representing peace journalism.