Assessing refugee crisis through the lens of media; a comparative analysis of American and Pakistani newspapers

Abstract

Study focuses on portrayal refugee crisis in American and Pakistani newspapers (The Washington Post and Dawn) during one year (May 2017-April 2017). Recently two major events played a key role in boosting this tragedy firstly post 9/11 war on terror and secondly Arab spring. The consequent conflicts in countries have caused millions of people to flee from their homelands. Now 22 million people are refugees out of the total 65.6 million of world population (UNHCR, 2017). America being a key player in international media, can make or break the story through its information handling techniques. Likewise Pakistan, the second largest host of refugees in the world lost its top position after Syrian conflict. Issue of Afghan refugees is the most delayed refugee issue in the world and Pakistan being top host has greater place in international scenario in these terms. As the refugee crisis goes on with no end in sight, increasing socio-economic pressures in neighboring countries; acceptance of refugees has become questionable. Since refugees are being subjected to major human rights violation, analyzing role of media in this regard becomes significant. While considering main objectives of the study, findings of critical discourse analysis (CDA) reveal that American and Pakistani newspapers’ portray refugees as victim of human rights violations. 

Keywords: Refugees, Crisis, mainstream, Newspapers, Portrayal, CDA