INDIAN MEDIA: FEEDING THE WAR HYSTERIA OR A PEACE DIVIDEND?

Abstract

Agenda setting through discursive practices remains a dominant practice in PostTruth era. The media in this regard is playing a pivotal role at full spectrum. The media reporting of conflicts through phraseology has heightened the impact of media on popular perception building. It is debatable now to establish if any state’s foreign policy is driven by its officials or by the media content. In the light of content framing, this article explains the Indian media’s pessimistic role in shaping the public opinion in an anticipated direction by its focus on calculated and sustained approach. Overall, Indian media while setting the agenda in favor of coercive and aggressive posturing of Indian government vis-à-vis Pakistan, has forgotten the essence of Peace Journalism. Such conduct has paved ways to feed war hysteria by manipulated conflict reporting against Pakistan. The articulation of conflict prone discourse by Indian media
will be explained under the theoretical contours of CNN Effect theory.