Framing Pakistan's 'Kim Kardashian'-Qandeel Baloch: A Comparative Analysis of Op-eds from Pakistan's English-language Newspapers

摘要

Qandeel Baloch belonged to a conservative family from a remote area in Pakistan, and gained nation-wide popularity due to her blunt, risque social-media posts and candid selfies with a famous religious cleric, Mufti Qavi. Weeks before her murder, media outlets disclosed her original name and put her life in danger. Always under media surveillance and scrutiny, Baloch's honor-killing sparked a debate on the role of media in creating a security risk for the social-media starlet. This research analyses the op-eds of leading English-language Pakistani newspapers- "The News, " "Dawn, " "The Nation, " and "The Express Tribune"-from June 20, 2016, to August 20, 2016, to understand the representation of Qandeel Baloch and the incident of her assassination. This research also explores how newspapers framed the religious cleric Mufti Qavi after the murder of Baloch and uses news frames to construct a comparative analysis of the op-eds of four prominent newspapers in Pakistan.