Current Affairs Talk Shows on Leading TV Channels in Pakistan: Agents of Political Harmony

Abstract

In this study, the researchers have investigated the escalatory and de-escalatory potential of current affairs talk shows in the leading TV channels in Pakistan. The data was analyzed through content analysis by applying the war and peace journalism model developed by Johan Galtung. We found the five leading talk shows produced more escalatory content like pitting the political parties against each other to create more drama, decontextualize the political issues and proved to be politically biased. Moreover, the issues of political nature were mainly of escalatory nature as compared to the non-political issues. The study concludes that to create a more democratic culture in the country, the media should educate people in democratic traditions like tolerance, political knowledge and including popular perspectives on important national issues