Presentation of Pakistan’s Image: Thematic Analysis of Editorials of the Washington Post

Abstract

The present research aims to study the image of Pakistan through identifying the themes which are used by the editorials of The Washington Post. The population of the study comprised of editorials of The Washington Post that have the word Pakistan in title or in opening paragraph. A total of 116 editorials were analyzed with the help of NVIVO 10 that identified eight different themes. The thorough analysis of the data revealed that the newspapers mostly wrote about Pakistan through the following themes: Pakistan backing Taliban, negative image of President Musharraf, democracy in Pakistan, nuclear technology and Pakistan government, Pakistan’s operation against terrorism, Indian terrorist attacks, US military operation and Osama bin Laden, and social issues in Pakistan. It was also observed that Pakistan was presented in a very negative way. General Pervez Musharraf was very harshly criticized. Overall Pakistan was presented as a frail, threatening and monstrous country. Pakistan policy makers must develop counter strategies to combat this negative image building.