Climate Change Issue in the Pakistani Press: Exploring the Predominant Themes during and after the 2022-Floods

Abstract

Pakistan experienced a devastating flood of unprecedented magnitude during the summer of 2022, setting a new benchmark in terms of its devastating impact this research is an attempt to explore the magnitude of and the themes in the coverage of the floods by tow Pakistani English newspapers; daily the Dawn and daily The News International. This study is an attempt to analyze the scope and nature of the coverage given to the devastating floods by the newspapers during June 01 to September 30, 2022. A mix-method of quantitative and qualitative methodology has been employed to measure the magnitude of the coverage and to analyze the themes in it about the floods within the context of the climate change issue in Pakistan. We have investigated the front, back, international, and Op-Ed pages of the selected newspapers to assess their attention towards the issue under study. Employing the framing as a theoretical framework we have found out that the causes and consequences of climate change were the most commonly discussed topics, followed by the strategies for mitigating its effects and policy deliberations. The results of the inferential analysis, specifically chi-square tests, revealed a statistically significant disparity in the extent of media coverage pertaining to climate change between the periods before and after the occurrence of the floods.