Media narratives of Kashmir unrest in July 2016: A comparative analysis of regional newspapers

Abstract

Narrative is realised in many different media. It is all about the art of telling stories which media has been doing efficiently since its inception so much so that the piece of information printed in newspapers are called stories. Kashmir unrest is a 50 years long story of Post-Independence India and it is running in the veins of every Indian. Also, it develops a new story of conflicts which in turns becomes a narrative within the Jammu and Kashmir state. When we start telling story of Kashmir unrest, we have two narratives within the regional media itself: One is from Kashmir and other is from the Jammu. Both the narratives are also the part of conflict within. Both the regions have their own colour and text ideology to report the same incident of the same day and same time to cater their respective audiences. The media narratives for both the states are different; one to cater the non-Kashmiri audiences and other for the Kashmiri audience only. The narratives of the incidents presented by newspapers of both the regions of Jammu and Kashmir valley is highly influenced by the contrast ideologies of the people in these two regions. Since the newspapers are catering to the people of these two regions, so the tone and texture of news is kept according to them. This paper tries to compare the narratives of prominent newspapers of Jammu region and Kashmir region during the Kashmir unrest in July 2016 during Burhan Wani encounter.