Assessing Bias in
Indian Media’s Coverage of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
By Adnan Siddiqi (I am taking the course’s second module).
Background:
States often use mass media as a tool to frame stories in a
ways that serve their interests. And advancing one’s own agenda often involves thwarting
that of one’s rivals. This is common practice between Pakistan and India, two
nations that have been tied in conflict since they became independent in 1947.
Both parties seldom miss an opportunity to take the other on in print or
broadcast.
In April this year, Pakistan and China- India’s bigger
rival- sealed a $46 billion deal to build a 3,000 km-long network of roads
connecting Kashgar, in landlocked western China, to Pakistan’s deep-sea port at
Gwadar. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is projected to be a
“game-changer” as it will allow the former to expand its footprint in the
region and the latter to benefit from the investment.
India has declared the project “unacceptable” because a part
of it will run through the disputed territory of Kashmir. Pakistan, on the
other hand, has accused India of sabotaging the project by running a propaganda
campaign against it in Indian media. As a former journalist from Pakistan, I am
interested in using social network analysis to assess Pakistan’s claim that
Indian media’s coverage of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor reflected a
bias.
Research Questions:
In Indian coverage of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, are
a number of different “experts” commenting in news reports/television talk
shows? Who are the experts?
Do Indian news reports/television talk shows on the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor provide competing views on the subject?
Hypothesis:
In Indian media’s coverage of the China-Pakistan Economic
Corridor, news reports/television talk shows will feature a small number of
experts who will be quoted in a large number of media outlets. These experts
will not necessarily be authorities on or relevant to the areas they are
commenting on.
Indian news reports/television talk shows on the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will provide or give preference to a singular
view on the subject.
Data:
I plan to build my dataset using news reports/television
talk shows from the following Indian media organizations:
Print (English daily newspapers): Times of India, The Hindu, Indian
Express, The Hindustan Times
Broadcast (Television channels and their websites, English and
Hindi): NDTV, Times Now, CNN IBN, Zee News
My dataset will range from April 2015, when the deal for the
megaproject was signed between Pakistan and China, till October 2015. Choosing
a seven-month period will allow me to vet a significant amount of data and
gauge any potential changes in coverage over time before drawing conclusions.
Methodology:
My project will employ a methodology similar to what was
developed by Alex Taylor in her project, Behind the Sources: Identifying the
expert voices shaping media coverage of Hezbollah’s role in the Syrian crisis.
To identify the experts quoted in news reports/television shows
on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, I will build a two-mode network
between the expert and the news outlet in which they have been quoted. In
articles and talk shows, the reporter or the anchor mentions who the expert is.
In order to check how many times an expert has been quoted by a news outlet,
each expert will be assigned a number representing the amount of appearances.
Building a bi-mode network will also show how many different news outlets have
quoted a single expert.
Once experts have been identified, each can be assigned
attributes such as their area of expertise, whether or not they have any political
affiliations. Then experts can be viewed in relation to their attributes as well
to see how many of them are of a certain category.
Each news article or television talk show can also be coded
based on whether or not it presents a singular viewpoint on the China-Pakistan
Economic Corridor. A ‘bias scale’ that represents tie strength can also be
built for each news report or television talk show, and Indian media pieces can
be compared with news reports from another foreign country, which can act as a
control.
Conclusion:
If the social network analysis shows that Indian media
outlets are relying on only a few experts for comments and analysis, these
experts have a pre-set political affiliation or do not belong to the area of
expertise they are commenting on, and media outlets are only focusing on one
view of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the hypotheses can be held as
true. If the hypotheses are true, Pakistan’s claim that India’s coverage of the
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor can be plausible. Even though this project
focuses on one case study, if the hypotheses are true, it can serve as an example
of how states use mass media to serve their interests.
Sources:
1 comment:
OK. We've discussed this, and here are couple of points:
1. Your hypotheses don't seem to be based on network efects.
2. I would have liked a bit more on how you plan to adapt Taylor's methodology to your specific case. The 'bias scale' idea came from me, I believe.
3. Something on how you plan to assess SNA measurements would have been helpful
4. You need to refine your Q. There are undoubtedly a number of experts, and there will be "competing viewpoints", but is there a network effect in play? A tipping point, perhaps? Leaders and followers? Lots of ways to do this.
Lots of work to do, and I look forward to seeing the results.
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