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Print Media’s Projection of Female Electoral Candidates in General Elections of Pakistan: The Case of Punjab
Abstract
Sixty-four women contested for the General Seats in February 2008elections but only 15 got elected. Multiple factors have contributed tothese results; one significant factor is the lack of national and localmedia coverage they get while running their election campaigns.Therefore, this study focuses on the newspaper coverage of femaleelectoral candidates during the campaigning months of generalelections in Pakistan. The research is strengthened by theamalgamation of framing and feminist theories in perspective.Moreover, the researcher has applied the content analysis researchdesign to do both qualitative and quantitative data analysis of bothgenders. In doing so, the frequency of coverage and theirrepresentation is empirically tested to produce accurate results. Thepaper also incorporates a comparative study of Urdu and Englishdailies in covering the intraparty positioning and campaignstrategies keeping in view the gender roles. For this purpose, theresearcher has conducted study of two Urdu (National language) andtwo English language national dailies i.e. Jang, Nawa-e-waqt, TheNation and Dawn, respectively. The findings revealed an inadequaterepresentation of women in newspapers during election campaign2008, whereas surprisingly Urdu newspapers gave more coverage towomen compared to English newspapers.
References
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