Pakistan through the Lens of Afghan Media

Abstract

The fall of the Taliban regime marked the rise of the vocal and vibrant media sector in the country. Today, Afghanistan has dozens of TV channels, radio stations, dailies, weeklies and other periodicals catering almost every stratum of society in the country. The role of media in interstate ties cannot be overlooked because media has come to wield immense soft power to shape public opinion and national policy in the globalized world. Afghanistan has a paramount place in geostrategic, security and economic calculus of Pakistan and vice versa. However, there is no scholarly work on how Afghan media frames Pakistan in its national discourse and debate. Thus, it is important to content-analyze Afghanistan’s media discourse on Pakistan from the theoretical perspective of agenda-setting theory. The pioneering research work attempts to survey media landscape in Afghanistan and provides in-depth analysis of the Afghan media’s discourse about Pakistan-its dynamics, drivers and implications for the bilateral ties. The perennially strained Pak-Afghan ties enhance the importance of the evaluation of Afghanistan’ media narrative on Pakistan and how it can act as a bridge-builder between the two countries.