Abstract
In this study, the researchers have investigated the practice of intermedia citations in the leading newspapers of India and Pakistan over an extending time period from 2005 to 2022. The case of these two countries is important because relationships between them have been acrimonious since the division of the subcontinent in 1947 over a number of contentious issues. In line with the existing literature, we found that the press of two countries relied on each other to provide information about the happenings on the other side of the border. Intermedia citations increased when important events happened like eruption of violence or initiation of peace process. However, despite the practice of intermedia citation, the press of the two countries expressed reservations about the authenticity of such information. Moreover, we found that reservations were expressed more on security issues as compared to the non-security issues like socio-cultural events. The press of the two countries do not objectively inform readers about the perspective of opponent side on critical bilateral issues.
Many researchers believe that a multi-perspective approach in media to conflicted situation provides better opportunities to audiences to form constructive opinions (Fahmy and Hussain, 2021; Tenenboim-Weinblatt et al., 2016). However, it is often a cumbersome job for journalists to include the perspective of the officials of an opponent country due to a number of reasons including pressure from the elites, restrictions on movement of journalists, language barriers, financial cost, and adversarial public opinions (Gonen and Hoxha, 2019; Lynch and Rice, 2022). In such scenarios, one option is to rely on the opponent country's media for information (Gonen et al., 2022a). Gonen et al. (2022a) call it an intermedia citation and argue that this practice allows journalists to include the perspective of the enemy country and thus provides opportunities to people to know the alternative views. By using information published by the media of the opposite side of the conflict, journalists enrich the discussions about the conflicts and conflict-like situations (Gonen et al., 2022a). In a related study, however, they found that the practice of inter-media citation was affected by expression of journalistic reservations about the other side (Gonen et al., 2022b). Even though journalists would be relying on enemy's country media for information, most of the times they express their professional or political stances, and even change the framing of a story by discarding the other side's news frame – thus the practice of inter-media citation may not contribute to a better understanding of the position of an opponent country.
Gonen et al. (2022b) divided reservations into two types. Internal reservation expresses skepticism through certain grammatical expressions to show that whatever information has been obtained from the sources may not be trustworthy. On the other hand, the external reservations include explicit demonstration of contradiction and skepticism by the journalist on the sources of information. This reservation is expressed that the source of information is not verified or that the cited material is mere accusations (Gonen et al., 2022b).
While postulating the core arguments of inter-media citations, these two studies (Gonen et al., 2022a, 2022b) maintain that the media of a weaker side in a conflict rely more on the media of a stronger country. Secondly, the practice of intermedia citation is influenced by important events like when violence occurs or the peace process is underway. This practice usually remains dormant during uneventful times. Third, while garnering information from an enemy country's media, journalists do not publish it as obtained. They express both internal and external reservations in their reports to alert their audiences about the veracity of such information. Last but not least, the media expresses more reservations in the cooperation context as compared to a violent context.
In this study, we want to test the core arguments of the inter-media citations developed by Gonen and colleagues (2022a and 2022b) in the context of India and Pakistan. This study aims to examine the mutual reliance of the media of India and Pakistan to provide information about the events happening in each other's country. While the practice of inter-media citation is generally observed in the two country's media, there is a need for an empirical investigation to analyze its extent and nature. Moreover, while the work of Gonen et al. (2022a, 2022b) is praiseworthy for addressing important queries relating to inter-media citations, the approach can be further strengthened by adding a few more dimensions to it. In this study, we are contributing to the approach by investigating whether the nature of issue (having a security or non-security dimension) is likely to influence the practice of inter-media citations. Furthermore, we also provide empirical evidence of whether various contexts like violent/cooperation, topics of security/non-security nature, and the position of one country over its opponent in terms of its relative strength are related to the various dimensions of reservations expressed in media. While examining the practice of intermedia citations over a longer period, we will touch upon whether it has been influenced by rightwing nationalism in recent years. Although the focus of this enquiry is on the intermedia citation approach and nature of information being cited, the insight from this study will also help analyze an important argument in the peace journalism scholarship that whether peace events will result in more reconciliatory media content as compared to war events.
The rest of the article is arranged like this. First, we provide a brief overview of the relationships between India and Pakistan for a better perspective. After that, the literature on media reliance on elite sources and inter-media citations is reviewed. Research hypotheses are embedded in this part. The method part explains the content analysis part and conceptual and operational definitions of the variables. Examples of the actual stories are provided for a clear understanding of these variables. Findings of the study and a discussion on the key arguments follow the method part. The limitations of the study are presented at the end.
Indo-Pak relations and the nationalistic role of media
Both India and Pakistan got independence from the British Empire in 1947. Since then, the two countries have been at loggerheads over a range of issues. While the dispute over the territory of Kashmir has been a recurrent source of conflict over the course of their histories, regional rivalry, changes in conventional and nuclear military capabilities, and deep mistrust continue to forestall any normalization of ties (McLeod, 2016; Mukherjee, 2016). They have fought in three major wars and a low scale war in 1999 in the Kargil region. The first major war occurred in 1948 leading to the division of Kashmir into two parts – the Pakistani-administered Kashmir and the Indian-administered Kashmir. Even this division did not resolve their differences and a second war broke out between the two sides in 1965. The war ended after a peace truce mediated by the UN in which they agreed to resolve their bilateral issues (Pandya, 2019). The acrimony, however, continued and in 1971, a third war started between them, which led to the dismemberment of Pakistan – Bangladesh emerged as a free state, which was an earlier part of Pakistan (McLeod, 2016; Mukherjee, 2016).
From the 1970s onward, an arms race started between the two countries where they invested heavily in missile and nuclear technologies. In the later part of 1990s, they detonated atomic bombs and got the status of nuclear-capable countries. However, even the nuclear deterrence did not completely work and, in 1999, the two countries were engaged in a limited war commonly known as Kargil War.
Apart from full-blown wars, both India and Pakistan have engaged in a number of major escalations in the past two decades. Attacks on the Indian parliament in 2001, Mumbai attack in 2008, and Uri attack in 2016 are the major deadly events in which India accused Pakistan for hobnobbing with the militants (Mehdi, 2020). Similarly, Pakistan has accused India of aiding and abetting the Pakistani Taliban who have orchestrated dozens of deadly attacks (Kasuri, 2015). Likewise, Pakistan accuses India for supporting insurgency in the resources-rich province of Balochistan (Hussain et al., 2022). Three of the most recent events that jolted the already fragile relations were the abolishment of the special status of Kashmir, Pulwama attack, and the retaliatory surgical strike by India in the Pakistani territory, which was declared as an act of war by the latter. Although these escalations did not result in any major war, these further dented the already fragile relations.
Other contentious issues that contribute to the acrimony between India and Pakistan are differences over the distributions of water resources, boundary demarcation, treatment of minorities, and a competition to influence policy making in other neighboring countries, particularly, Afghanistan (McLeod, 2016; Mukherjee, 2016). These factors contribute to creating an enemy image that popularizes nationalistic warmongerings and discourages alternative perspectives calling for restraint and harmony in the region (Hernández, 2020; Iqbal and Hussain, 2018). Studies on the role of media in the Indo-Pak relations suggest that they contribute to jingoism and inflammation (Bose, 2011; Hussain et al., 2022; Neyazi and Schroeder, 2021). The media of the two countries acts as official mouthpieces for their respective governments and disallow the publication of critical voices (Sreedharan,2009; Iqbal and Hussain, 2018). For example, in a detailed analysis of Pakistan and Indian media during Kargil and Mumbai attacks, Dwaipayan Bose found that the media of the two countries was ‘part of the problem’. She writes, “The media of both the nations has been fighting a proxy war that is blurring out factual and unbiased coverage of events in the subcontinent. Overly nationalistic posturing and jingoism lie at its heart. Journalists, columnists, TV anchors, and analysts of one country are busy exposing the {bias and hypocrisy} of the other, and in the process, adding insult to this decade-old injury”. Likewise, Seth (2016) found that the Indian and Pakistani media were jingoistic and sensationalistic while reporting on bilateral relations. She writes, “media penchant for sensationalism has arisen to such an elevated level that it has overtaken coherent arguments made by sane voices”. Madirataa (2014) laments that the media of the two countries is more preoccupied with security events, to the exclusion of non-security issues such as trade. He believes that this approach has minimized chances for peace diplomacy. In a detailed analysis, Sreedharan (2009) found that the Indian and Pakistani media were antagonistic and elitist in the coverage of bilateral issues. Similarly, Iqbal and Hussain (2018) argued that Pakistani media produced highly patriotic messages instead of doing professional and objective reporting while covering conflicts with India. While India was criticized for war-mongering and jingoism, the warring policies of the Pakistani governments were eulogized (Iqbal and Hussain, 2018).
In recent years, the nationalistic populism has further gripped the political environment in the two countries. The populist regimes of Narendera Modi and Imran Khan aggressively exploited the patriotic feelings in the two countries. Journalists in the two countries are increasingly pressured to promote nationalism and avoid critical reporting (Hussain et al., 2022; Hussain et al., 2021; Neyazi and Schroeder, 2021). As we discuss in the findings, the practice of intermedia citation registered a significant rise in recent years.
Reporting conflicts between states and the reliance on elite sources
A surplus of literature is available on the analysis of media reporting of conflicts between states in which researchers have found that the media prioritizes elitist perspectives as compared to alternative perspectives (Bennett et al., 2008; Robinson, 2017). In a critical analysis of the existing scholarship on the elitist influence on media, a prominent political communication scholar Robinson (2017) argued that the majority of researchers agree that elites hold sway over media debates during critical moments. He identified various factors including patriotism, popular feelings, and censorship that contribute to reliance on elite sources. Similarly, in the related field of peace journalism, researchers have documented instances of media reliance on policy elites that reduce journalism to a mere propaganda for warmongers (Lynch and Rice, 2022). In these studies, the scholars maintain that both structural and agential forces drive journalists towards elitist perspectives. Likewise, critical theorists believe that the nexus between elites and media stems from the prevalent capitalist system (Herman and Chomsky, 2010). In their analyses, the critical theorists have found systemic discrimination of alternative viewpoints in the traditional media.
Scholars argue that the media's overreliance on elite sources and the uncritical approach deprive people to get a fuller picture of conflict situations (Brown, 2019; Gonen and Hoxha, 2019). Brown (2019), for example, reports that dependence on elites pressurizes the media to avoid challenging and alternative viewpoints that consequently lead to a distorted opinion about a conflict situation. On the other hand, if media engages sources from all sides of a conflict, this will contribute to the better understanding of conflicts and may facilitate the peace process (Gonen and Hoxha, 2019; Lynch and Rice, 2022).
Despite media dependency on national elites, studies show that in modern times, media does not altogether exclude sources from the opposite side of the conflict (Gonen et al., 2022a; Rowling et al., 2021; Wolfsfeld, 2018). Generally termed as international indexing, these studies show that the inclusion of enemy country's sources has increased due to a number of factors including the globalization of national news media environments, enhanced commercialism, and the emergence of social media networks. Rowling and colleagues (2021), for example, found that US media included foreign sources to provide more balance reporting of the Israel-Lebanon conflict despite the pro-Israel stance of US officials. Despite the inclusion of adversarial sources, scholars maintain that national elites are able to steer media debates during crunch times and are generally successful in setting the agenda for media (Hayes and Guardino, 2013; Wolfsfeld, 2018).
Inter-media citations
As documented in two important studies on inter-media citations conducted by Gonen et al. (2022a, 2022b), the practice of getting information from other media is an old one. The need for citing an enemy's media sources increases when there is no other option to get information of the other side in a conflict. In these two studies, the researchers have identified an array of factors that encourage journalists to tune to the enemy's media including the professional needs, verification of information, reinforcement of their position, language barriers, physical hardships, ideological differences, lack of financial resources, and self-censorship (Gonen et al., 2022a, 2022b).
To gather complete information about a conflict and keep themselves aware of the important events, conflict reporters keep an eye on the media of the opposite side (Brown, 2019). Journalists also require opponent sources for strengthening their viewpoints and providing a context to their stories (Gonen et al., 2022b; Gonen and Hoxha (2019). Likewise, as noted by scholars, language barriers, security issues, and restrictions on movement of journalists are other important reasons that lead to reliance on media of an enemy country during a conflict (Gonen et al., 2022a). Additionally, the scarcity of resources and the lack of expertise in conflict reporting put significant limitations on journalists to produce exclusive new stories and hence the only alternative is to tune in to the media resources of the opponent group for critical information (Otto and Meyer, 2012). Similarly, Gonen et al. (2022a, 2022b) argue that the power position of a group in a conflict influences its dependence on the enemy's country's media. For example, they found that Palestinian media was more reliant on Israeli media. While following the literature, we believe that the inter-media citations in the Indo-Pak press will exhibit the same features as reported in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Owing to India's relatively power position in terms of economy, population, international recognition, and regional power, we hypothesize that media in Pakistan would rely more on Indian media for information. So the first hypothesis is: RH1: Pakistani press carries more inter-media citations as compared to the Indian press.
Need for information increases during important times like when violence erupts, important stakeholders engage in tit-for-tat responses, or the peace process starts between the conflicting sides. In such situations, journalists are under pressure to provide information to the people and hence greater reliance on enemy's media for confirmation, verification, and background information (Gonen et al., 2022a). On the other hand, during normal times when nothing eventful is happening, journalists do not need to go beyond what is commonly practiced. In line with this argument, we believe that inter-media citations would be greater during eventful times as compared to the normal times. RH2: Press of India and Pakistan would carry more inter-media citations in the eventful contexts as compared to uneventful contexts.
Another important area in which inter-media citation is important to be investigated is to identify the key topics or issues that receive more coverage as compared to other issues. In the inter-media citation literature, researchers have not examined this aspect. We believe that this is an important dimension that needs further exploration. Studies on conflict journalism suggest that security related issues receive more coverage as compared to non-security issues (Fröhlich and Jungblut, 2021; Hussain, 2020; Lynch et al., 2010). In the case of India and Pakistan, researchers have found that the media mainly reports the security aspects of the conflicted bilateral relations and the common socio-cultural issues are usually ignored (Bose, 2011; Iqbal and Hussain, 2018). We, therefore, hypothesize that security issues get main coverage in the inter-media citations as compared to non-security issues. Our hypothesis is: RH3: Security related topics receive more coverage in the press of India and Pakistan as compared to the topics relating to the non-security domain.
As discussed earlier, scholars of political communication and peace journalism believe if the media includes more perspectives, especially those of the enemy side; it will provide an opportunity to the audience be better informed. However, Gonen and colleagues (2020b) found that journalists do not blindly report the perspectives of enemy sources rather they use reservations in news discourse. Through various discursive strategies, the journalists cast doubt on the reliability of the perspectives of enemy sources. In their study, Gonen et al. (2022b) found that the media of the stronger side Israel was more skeptical as compared to the Palestinian side. Furthermore, they found that the Palestinian media showed more external/explicit reservations as compared to the Israeli media. Summarily, while the media of Israel relied on the Palestinian media for verification of reports, the Palestinian media generally accused the Israeli media of fabrication and propaganda. Our hypotheses are: RH4a: The Indian press expresses more reservations while citing the Pakistani media as compared to the Pakistani press citing the Indian media.
RH4b: The Pakistani press expresses more explicit/external reservations as compared to the Indian press.
Gonen et al. (2022b) found that journalists expressed more reservations in the cooperation context as compared to the violent context. They attribute this issue to the mistrust and suspicions between the two countries. The violent events are reported in comparatively lesser reservations because it is usually expected and journalists usually depend on their own policy elites for information. Moreover, Gonen et al. (2022b) argue that during sudden violent situations, cross-verification is generally avoided to provide speedy information. The available literature on intermedia citations does not reveal what types of reservations are expressed during a violent or cooperative context. This is yet another important area that needs further investigation. The peace journalism literature suggests that during the cooperation phase in a conflict, passive war journalism indicators like ignoring the context or emotive language are used as compared to active war journalism indicators like media calling for more violence and supporting jingoistic elites (Lynch et al., 2010; Lynch and Rice, 2022). We build on these arguments and expect implicit reservations during the cooperation phase in the Indo-Pak conflict. Our hypotheses are: RH5a: Expression of reservation is higher during the peace context as compared to the violent context.
RH5b: Expression of implicit/internal reservations is higher during peace context as compared to the violent context.
As discussed earlier, inter-media is expected to be greater when the press covers security dimensions of the Indo-Pak conflict. In the same vein, we also expect that the extent of reservations would be higher when the media of the two countries reports security related topics as compared to the non-security related topics. Although this question has not been debated in the inter-media citation literature, conflict journalism scholars contend in less securitized situations, and journalists enjoy some freedom to do constructive reporting and include perspective of the other side without much biasness (Hussain et al., 2022; Hussain, 2020). So we hypothesize: RH6a: Expression of reservation is higher in security related topics as compared to non-security related topics in the press of both India and Pakistan.
RH6b: Expression of internal reservation is higher in non-security issues as compared to security issues.
Method
To address the research hypotheses, quantitative content analysis is used. Through the census approach, we included all the stories appearing in the three leading Indian (The Hindu, Hindustan Times and Times of India) and three Pakistani newspapers (Dawn, The News and Express Tribune) in our sample. Although the press in Hindi and Urdu languages is more popular as compared to the English press in India and Pakistan, due to language barriers and accessibility of data, we opted for the English press. Despite these limitations, the selected newspapers have the highest readership among the English press in the two countries and are popular among the elites (McDowell et al., 2017: Rani and Arya, 2019). Their ideologies range from left to central right and are quite influential in setting public agenda on important issues (Raj et al., 2021; Hussain and Jehangir 2023).
The time period was from the start of June 2005 to the end of June 2022. The purpose for choosing a lengthy duration was to include as many stories as possible on the important events happening between the two countries. We used LexisNexis to collect data. Since data on this database for Express Tribune and Times of India were available not later than 2005, we set this as the starting year. 1 Only news stories (hard and soft stories) were included in the study. Due to very few opinion pieces, these were excluded from the sample because it required different coding rules. A total of 1527 news stories were collected. The corpus included 972 from Pakistani Press and 555 stories from Indian Press. Among the Pakistani Press, 450 stories were from Dawn; 385 from The News, and 137 from the Express Tribune. From Indian Press, 151 stories were taken from Hindustan Times, 30 stories from The Hindu and 374 stories from Times of India.
Conceptual and operational definitions of variables
Expression of reservations
Following Gonen et al. (2022b), expressing a reservation is conceptualized as an act of evaluation conducted by a journalist with regard to the original information at his/her disposal in a way that reconstructs the information, the actor quoted, or the cited media platform as untrustworthy or unreliable, or as uncertain or unimportant.
Types of reservations
Two types of reservations have been utilized in this study including internal reservation and external reservation. Internal reservation expresses skepticism through certain grammatical expressions to show that whatever information has been obtained from the sources may not be trustworthy. For example, use of parentheses may make the information doubtful. Likewise, words like ‘claim’ or use of irony could also impart a critical message in a sophisticated manner and lead them to analyze the information accordingly. For example, the Indian newspaper The Hindu (April 11, 2021) reported, “Pakistani media reports claimed that a former Federal Bureau of Investigations agent had come forward stating that his FBI bosses had ordered him to trap Moti at any cost”.
On the other hand, the external reservations include explicit demonstration of contradiction and skepticism by the journalist on the sources of information. This reservation could be expressed by assertions that the source of information is not verified or that the cited material is mere accusations. The journalists also utilize counter arguments or statements of the other side that contradict the information of these sources. For example, Times of India (May 25, 2017) reported “Pakistani fighter jets flew near the Siachen Glacier on Wednesday, according to Pakistani media reports, but Indian Air Force sources said there was no violation of India's air space”. Similarly, the Pakistani newspaper Express Tribune (April 7, 2020) reported that the Foreign Office of Pakistan rejected Indian media reports linking the country with the March 25 ‘terrorist attack’ on a Gurdwara in Kabul.
Contexts
In this study, we have used two types of contexts – eventful/uneventful context and cooperation/violent context. Eventful context refers to situations when important events are occurring like the two countries are engaged in war or peace talks and developments that have implications for the bilateral relations. In one representative story, Hindustan Times (April 27, 2016) reported, “India and Pakistan raised their preferred topics such as terror and the Kashmir issue without conceding much to the other in their first high-level contact since the Pathankot attack, the Pakistani media reported on Wednesday”. On the other hand, uneventful context refers to situations when nothing significant is happening in the context of bilateral relations. An example of intermedia citation during an uneventful context is the Hindustan Times report (January 25, 2017) on the deal between the government and the leadership of Tehreek Labaek. It reported, “The deal struck by the Pakistan government with the Tehreek reflects the disastrous handling of events by the ruling PML-N party, the Pakistani media said on Tuesday”. In this report, the Indian press cited Pakistani media on an internal issue which has no significance for the Indo-Pal relations.
While the eventful/uneventful context was evident from the stories being cited in the press, we also used the timelines developed by the Aljazeera and Jinnah Institute for the important events in the region. 2 The findings will reveal intermedia citations predominantly occurred in the eventful contexts.
Similarly, within the eventful contexts, both violent and cooperation contexts were identified. Violent context refers to militant attacks, incidents of bomb explosions, border skirmishes and escalatory statements that political and military elites make against the opposite side. For example, The News International (April 7, 2020) reported, “The Foreign Office of Pakistan on Tuesday rejected Indian media reports linking the country with the March 25 terrorist attack on a Gurdwara in Kabul”. In this and other similar reports, news about violent events and nationalistic rhetoric were reported.
The cooperation context refers to meetings of political and military elites to discuss bilateral issues, socio-cultural occasions, economic cooperation, sports, and other events where the two sides call for peace. In one representative story, The News International (August 16, 2019) reported, “Indian media has reported that Indian High Commission in Pakistan organized a cycling ride for 73 kilometers to celebrate 73rd Independence Day of India on Thursday with traditional fervor and enthusiasm”. Stories in this category mainly focused on diplomacy and cultural events like sports and showbiz.
Topics in the news stories: security/non-security issues
The news stories cited by India and Pakistani press covered various topics. Keeping in view the research hypotheses of this study, we categorized all the topics in two main areas – topics of the security domain and non-security domain. Topics covering terrorism, cross-border issues, arms deals, regional violence and injuries in Kashmir, bellicose statements by politicians, and military elites were considered as security related topics. For example, The Express Tribune (December 22, 2019) reported, “Pakistan Army has refuted the Indian media's reports that the two Pakistani soldiers had been killed in cross-border clashes along the Line of Control”. Topics about showbiz and sports, socio-cultural issues, trade and economic relations, and internal issues like farmers’ protests were included in the non-security domain. In one representative story, The Hindustan Times (|April 1,2021) reported “Prime Minister Imran Khan rejected his government panel decision to allow imports of sugar and cotton from India, Pakistani media reported”.
The unit of analysis was a single news story. We applied the nominal level of measurement for collecting data. The second author in the study collected all the data. To check inter-coder reliability, an independent coder having an MS degree in Media Studies was trained in the coding scheme. Using Cronbach alpha, the reliability tests yielded high agreement than 85 for all variables – expression of reservation, interval and eternal reservations, eventful and uneventful contexts, violent and non-violent contexts, and security and non-security topics.
Findings
RH1: Pakistani press carries more inter-media citations as compared to the Indian press.
As shown in Table 1, out of all the 1527 stories published in the selected press of two countries, the Pakistan press reported 64% and the Indian press reported 36%. Statistically, the difference is significant (p value .03). This argument is supported by the literature that the media of the relatively weak country relies more on the media of the powerful country for information (Gonen et al., 2022a). Among the Pakistani press, Dawn reported 30% of news stories, followed by The News reported (25.2%) and Express Tribune (9%) in which the media of India was cited. On the other hand, among the Indian newspapers, Times of India reported 25% stories from the Pakistani media as compared to The Hindustan Times (10%) and The Hindu (2%). The Hindu newspaper got the least number of stories because it had a special correspondent based in Islamabad between 2010 and 2016. Moreover, it relied on foreign news agencies like AFP, AP, and Reuters instead of citing from the Pakistani media.
Inter-media citations in the Indo-Pak press.
As shown in Table 2, newspapers of the two countries practiced more intermedia citations in the eventful contexts (67%) as compared to the uneventful contexts (33%). The difference between the two categories is statistically significant (the p value is .000). This point is well elaborated in the literature and journalism practices. When important events occur like escalation in violence or new policy directions are given by governments that can influence the bilateral relations, need for information about such events is greater and hence pressure is more on journalists to produce news even from the opponent media sources. For example, during border tension between the two countries when the armies were on high alert in 2017, Times of India (May 25, 2017) reported, “Pakistani fighter jets flew near the Siachen Glacier on Wednesday, according to Pakistani media reports. To thwart the enemy's designs, the Indian air force is already on high alert”. In other reports, the press of the two countries published stories about the war preparedness and strength of their militaries. The perspectives of political and military elites and calls for peace by the international community also got significant coverage.
Context-specific inter-media citation in the Indo-Pak press.
Chi square 19.75, p value .06.
Chi square 123.08, P value .000.
Moreover, as shown in Graph 1, the practice of intermedia citations has registered a gradual increase with the passage of time. The first significant spike came in 2014 when Prime Minister Narendera Modi was elected. During this year, the Pakistani prime minister also visited India. Another sharp increase came in the years between 2017 and 2020. During this time, the region saw important events like Imran Khan becoming Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Pulwama attack, abolishing the special status of Kashmir, surgical strikes, re-election of Narendra Modi, etc. Similarly, the nationalistic rhetoric produced by the leadership was increasingly cited in the press. The media of two countries remained active purveyors of the diatribe produced by the populist regimes (Neyazi and Shroeder, 2019).
Graph Intermedia citation in the Indo-Pak press over the years (2005–2022).
As shown in Table 3, newspapers of both India and Pakistan relied on the opposing country's media predominantly on security issues (71%) as compared to the non-security issues (29). The difference between the two categories is significant (p value .01). This is not unexpected because the two countries mainly see each other through security lenses (Iqbal and Hussain, 2018) and journalists refer to each other's media to provide a context to their stories. Moreover, as can be seen in Table 3, the Indian press gave slightly more coverage to the security topics as compared to Pakistan; however, this is not statistically significant (p value .10). In one representative story, The Express Tribune (June 11, 2020) reported “Indian media late last night claimed that an emergency blackout was imposed in Karachi with Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jets patrolling the skies after a formation of Indian Air Force (IAF) jets was identified at the border. The Express Tribune analyzed the claim and found it to be false”. In other stories, the press reported the escalations taking place at the border regions and the inflammatory statements of politicians accusing each other for the problems in the region.
Inter-media citations in the Indo-Pak press in terms of security/non-security issues.
Chi square 143.06, p value .01.
On the other hand, the press of two countries also cited a number of non-security events. In one representative story, Times of India (March 23, 2015) reported “Fawad Khan (a Pakistani film star) is ready to come back to TV with an epic love story”. In this story, information about the cast and central theme of the drama is provided. RH4a: The Indian press expresses more reservations while citing the Pakistani media as compared to the Pakistani press citing the Indian media.
As shown in Table 4, the Indian newspapers expressed more reservation (79%) while citing the media of Pakistan as compared to the Pakistani press (72%). Statically the difference is significant (p value .04). This argument is also supported in the relevant literature that the media of a powerful country in a conflict express more suspicions while citing the media of a weaker country (Gonen et al., 2022b). For example, Times of India (June 30, 2017) reported “Islamabad has slammed the Indo-US joint statement following the Modi-Trump meet as “singularly unhelpful”, Pakistani media reported Thursday”. In this story, the Indian newspaper quoted the two words of the Pakistani foreign office spokesperson by distancing itself from the position of the latter. However, it does not mean that the Pakistani press was less objective while citing the Indian media. As shown in Table 4, it published 72% of stories that expressed some reservations as compared to the no reservations category (28%). Overall, as Table 4 suggests, the press of the two countries produced more reservations (72%) than no reservations (28%) resulting in a significant difference (p value .00). RH4b: The Pakistani press expresses more external reservations as compared to the Indian press.
(a) Expression of reservations in the Indo-Pak press.
Chi square 136.03, p value .04.
Chi square 89.91, p value .00.
Chi square 15.65 p value .17.
Chi square 152.06 p value .04.
Chi square 25.66 p value .08.
As shown in Table 4b, overall the press of two countries did not produce significantly different strategies while citing the media of each other (p value .08). The Pakistani media adopted almost similar strategies while producing reports from the Indian media (p value .17); although numerically it produced more stories in which external reservations were expressed. The hypothesis is not supported. This means that the Pakistani press more often challenged the veracity of reports by the Indian media. In one representative story, for example, Dawn (October 18, 2015) reported, “Farooq Sattar rejects Indian media's report claiming that he has sought US help to stop the government from targeting MQM members in Karachi. Mr Sattar also said that an Indian media report claiming that he had asked the Obama administration to stop Pakistan's government from targeting its members in Karachi was wrong”.
Interestingly, the Indian media, which although produced more reservations (as shown in the Table 4), produced more internal reservations (65%) as compared to the external reservations (35%) with a significant statistical difference (p value .04). It shows that although Indian media was skeptical of the reports published in the Pakistani media, they did not produce more counter-arguments that the reports were altogether wrong. RH5a: Expression of reservation is higher during the cooperation context as compared to the violent context.
As shown in Table 5a, the cooperation context between India and Pakistan yielded 83% of stories that contained reservations as compared to 78% of stories that produced reservations in the conflict context. However, statistically the difference is not significant (p value .06). The hypothesis is not supported. These findings are not in line with the Gonen et al. (2020b) who found that cooperation context results in more significant reservations. Scholars believe that journalists living in conflicted societies critically evaluate their government policies towards enemies and put extra pressures on their diplomats not to concede any favor (Lynch and Rice, 2022). In the context of India and Pakistan, studies show that the media of two countries exhibited more escalatory stances during negotiations (Hussain et al. 2021). RH5b: Expression of internal reservations is higher during cooperation context as compared to the violent context.
(a) Reservations during war and peace times.
Chi square 98.65, p value .06.
Chi square 115.60 p value .00.
Chi square 78.86 p value .03.
Chi square 18.21 p value .10.
As shown in Table 5b, the cooperation context yielded more external reservation (77%) as compared to the internal reservations (23%) with a significant difference (p value .00). The hypothesis is not supported. Moreover, as Table 5b shows, overall we did not find any significant difference between the distribution of internal reservations (49%) and external reservations (51%). Interestingly, in the violent context, more internal reservations (65%) were expressed as compared to external reservations (35%) with a significant difference (p value .03). These findings substantiate the findings in Table 5 that during peace times, journalists found enough time to come up with the rebuttals/counter arguments and hence more external reservations. On the other hand, during conflict times, when verification of information is difficult to do, journalists usually apply skepticism in grammatical expressions like “media claimed or alleged” due to a shortage of time to alert their audiences that the information may not be true. For example, while reporting on cross border firings in the Kashmir region, Hindustan Times (May 24, 2018) reported, “Pakistani media has claimed that it has lost six civilians and two soldiers in the mortar shelling by the Border Security Forces on villages along what they called the Working Boundary”. RH6a: Expression of reservation is higher in security related topics as compared to non-security related topics in the selected press.
As shown in Table 6a, news stories of security nature contained more reservations (91%) as compared to the non-security issues that contained lesser reservations (32%). The difference between the two categories is significant (p value .00). As discussed earlier, the decades of animosity between India and Pakistan have created deep mistrust between them where they see each other as a security threat. In this regard, it was expected that security related issues would be mainly reported with reservations. Table 6 also shows that stories related to non-security topics received lesser coverage in the Indo-Pak press. RH6b: Expression of internal reservation is higher in non-security issues as compared to security issues.
(a) Reservations in terms of security and non-security nature of news stories.
Chi square 10.33, p value .00.
Chi square 12.77, p value .01.
As shown in Table 6b, reports of non-security issues mainly contain internal strategies of reservation (85%) as compared to the security issues that contain lesser internal strategies and more external reservations. The difference between the two categories is significant (p value .00). This is understandable because journalists do not feel much pressure while borrowing from the opponent country's media on non-security issues to check it with their own country's sources. In such reports, journalists usually insert exclamations or quote the keywords of a speaker. For example, The Hindustan Times (July 29, 2017) reported “Pakistan's pro-army media on Saturday hailed former Prime Minister's Nawaz Sharif's indictment for corruption as a “new chapter for accountability” in the country, describing the Supreme Court verdict as the “aspiration” of the people”. In this story, the newspaper quoted the words from the Pakistani media to express irony that how the pro-military media of Pakistan is framing the ouster of an elected prime minister. By inserting exclamations, the journalists distanced themselves from the intended meaning. On the other hand, the media of the two countries expressed more external reservations (52%) on security issues. For example, Times of India (December 20, 2020) reported, “India denied reports in Pakistani media on Friday that its troops had fired on UN vehicles in Kashmir. Official sources said these reports emerging from the Pakistani side regarding attack on UN vehicles are completely false and factually incorrect”. In this story, the newspaper expresses external reservations by challenging the truthfulness of information as reported by the Pakistani media. Overall, these examples suggest that the type of reservation expressed in intermedia citations is related to the security/non-security dimension of the topic.
Discussion and conclusion
In this study, we empirically investigated the approach of intermedia citations in the leading newspapers of India and Pakistan. Overall, we found support for the existing scholarship that the media borrows from enemy country's media when other sources of information are difficult to access. However, Gonen et al. (2022a, 2022b) maintain that journalists while citing media of the opposing side do not publish objective information. Depending on the context of the situation, journalists either reject the information by coming up with alternative perspectives or insert grammatical signs of skepticism to alert their own audiences about the truthfulness of news.
Interestingly, we found that the press of Pakistan relied more on the Indian media for information. This finding is quite in line with the literature where researchers found that comparatively a weaker country relies more on the stronger country's media (2022b; Gonen and Hoxha, 2019, Gonen et al., 2022a). Since in her engagement with India, Pakistan is influenced by the Indian government policy on Kashmir, distribution of waters, her armament policy, and influence on regional affairs (Waseem, 2016), the press in Pakistan cites more from Indian media to tell its readers about Indian actions that have implications for bilateral relations.
Moreover, in this study, we found that the practice of intermedia citation is largely determined by the eventful contexts. Both the country's press borrowed more from each other during crisis times or when negotiations were taking place. Intermedia citation significantly decreased in the uneventful context. Elsewhere, researchers have found that journalists come under pressure to resort to this practice when important events take place in the enemy's country (Wolfsfeld, 2018; Lynch and Rice, 2022). Even if journalists do not report all the relevant events, still they keep an eye on new developments to keep themselves abreast with the situation and provide context to their stories by following the media of the other side (Gonen et al., 2022a). In this study, we found that intermedia citation practice increased exponentially in 2014. This is an important year for a number of reasons including the assumption of premiership by hardliner Narendera Modi, visit by the Pakistani premier to India, and then increase in the unrest in Kashmir in the last months. Likewise, between 2017 and 2021, a number of important developments occurred in the region including the prime ministership of Imran Khan and Narendera Modi, the attack on Indian forces in Pulwama district, and the resultant surgical strikes that brought the two countries to a brink of a war. These events were extensively cited by the two country's media. The right wing populism in the two countries particularly the rise of Hindutva in India sparked anti-Muslims and anti-Pakistan sentiments. The populist rhetoric attracted a lot of media attention in the enemy country and thus intermedia citations got prominence.
Apart from the eventfulness of a context, we also found that the nature of issues having security significance is also a very important factor in the practice of intermedia citations. The press of Indian and Pakistan relied on each other for security issues as compared to non-security issues. It is conceivable because in the face of acrimonious relations, both India and Pakistan see each other through security lenses. The newspapers frequently cited stories pertaining to exchange of firings on the line of control, arms deals, testing of missiles and accusation of support to terrorist groups in each other's country.
An interesting aspect of this study is the analysis of reports cited from an opponent's country media in terms of expression of reservations. Following the Gonen and colleague's studies (2022a, 2022b), the model of expression of reservations, the findings of this study suggest that the media of the two countries expressed varying levels of reservations while borrowing information from each other. The press produced more reservations during cooperation context as compared to violent context. Such reservations reinforce the enemy image of an opponent country. In terms of the extent of reservations expressed, we also found that Indian newspapers were more skeptical of the authenticity of information as compared to the Pakistani press, although, the former applied a lenient form of reservations when compared to the latter's approach of applying more aggressive reservations.
Moreover, our findings suggest that the press of two countries adopts a skeptical approach while citing from other's media both in cooperation and conflict contexts. This is not in line with the literature where researchers believe that cooperation context resulted in more journalistic reservations (Gonen et al., 2022b). We believe that it occurred due to the high acrimonious state of bilateral affairs. Over the decades, the political enmity between India and Pakistan has acquired a symbolic position where the overwhelming majority of population sees each other with disdain (Iqbal and Hussain, 2018; Seth, 2016). The populist nationalistic regimes of Modi and Khan further exploited and contributed to this acrimony for their political advantages. Recent studies suggest that the media of the two countries has been hand in glove with these regimes (Neyazi, 2019). In our study, we found increasing evidence of the expression of suspicion about the authenticity of information to the outright refutation of news coming from the opponent country's media in the recent past.
These findings raise important questions about the core arguments in the peace journalism scholarship. Peace journalism researchers argue that the inclusion of enemy sources would contribute to a constructive media debate (Lynch and Rice, 2022; Lynch et al., 2010). We argue that mere inclusion of opponent's sources may not be very conducive because media coverage is significantly influenced by a nationalistic discourse where enemy sources of information are carefully processed. It is therefore important to examine how the perspective of enemy sources is reported while strategizing for peace journalism.
This study is not without limitations. First, we analyzed only English newspapers for this study. Future studies should examine the Hindi and Urdu press. As documented by researchers (Neyazi and Schroeder, 2019; Hussain, 2020), the Hindi and Urdu press are very popular in India and Pakistan among the audiences due to their socio-political and nationalistic expressions across the borders. Second, TV channels should be examined for an intermedia citation approach. Experts/journalists of two countries frequently appear on TV shows of each other's country. It would be important to analyze what sorts of questions they are asked and to what extent they are able to freely express their opinions. During live talk shows, the anchors have little control on the content and we may find that a multi-perspective approach is being generated. Third, the media of two countries relies on social media for news and it would be interesting to investigate how the social media context is cited. Dissident groups and actors usually use social media to express their perspectives which are often utilized by the enemy country. This needs further investigation. Last but not least, our study is quantitative in nature. A discourse analysis of the cited content would help decipher the key thematic areas and contexts that get more salience in the intermedia citation practice.
Footnotes
Acknowldgment
The authors are thankful to the editor of the journal and the reviewers for valuable comments and suggestion for improvement.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article
