Coverage of Women Issues in the Pakistan’s Press: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

The aim of this research is to thoroughly analyze the part multilingual dailies play in covering women issues in Pakistan. It is rooted from national newspapers, the Daily ‘Dawn’, the Daily ‘Jang’ and the Daily ‘Kawish’ in the year of 2011. The study explores to what extent of the violence against women and education issue of women is dealt by the sampled dailies. The study employed content analysis a quantitative research methodology during 1st January 2011 to 31st December 2011. The contents of the newspaper were measured in column per centimeter of the space of one year. For this research work three major dailies of three different languages, the Daily Dawn, the Daily Jang and the Daily Kawish were selected. In sum up, an elite class newspaper the Daily Dawn has published 562 very little issues of women and used 0.6 percent of the total capacity which is of 4353024 co./cm in the year of 2011. However, the Sindhi language newspaper, the Daily Kawish has used 2430 a little more issue of women and covered 2.3 percent of total capacity of 1678976 col./cm of this daily in 2011. To some extent, the Urdu language newspaper the Daily Jang has reported 1297 more number of women issues and used 1 percent of total capacity of 2423616 col./cm in one year. Hence, the result shows that Pakistani press gives a little bit space to issues of women rights. Although, the Daily Dawn and the Daily Kawish have reported more issues of violence against women but the Daily Jang (an Urdu language newspaper) has covered more education problems of women in its newspaper in the year of 2011.