Representations of Naya Pakistan: A corpus-based study of Pakistani media discourses
| Author | Muhammad Afzaal,Swaleha Bano Naqvi,Gul Rukh Raees |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221105726 |
| Subject Matter | Research Articles on South Asian Politics |
Representations of Naya
Pakistan: A corpus-based study
of Pakistani media discourses
Muhammad Afzaal
Shanghai International Studies University, China
Swaleha Bano Naqvi
National University of Sciences & Technology, Pakistan
Gul Rukh Raees
FAST National University, Pakistan
Abstract
The study investigates how Pakistani media discourses represented the populist political rhetoric
of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) between 2016 and 2018. Applying the theoretical lens of cor-
pus-based critical discourse analysis to a specially constructed corpus, the study examines how
PTI’s populist political rhetoric was co-opted by the media to garner public support for it prior
to the 2018 elections and then to criticize its performance following electoral victory. The
selected corpus comprised news, articles, and headlines published in English newspapers between
2016 and 2018. Based on the analysis, the study identifies linguistic devices and strategies in the
media discourses covering PTI’s run-up to the elections and ascent to power. It also sheds light
on the types of populism exercised by the media in depicting political messages to move from pro-
motion of PTI’s vision and rhetoric to critique of its perceived post-election failure to fulfil its pro-
mises. Concordance lines and collocation analysis furnish evidence of a shift in the media
discourses from pre-election optimism and ideological valorization of the PTI agenda to failure
and loss of hope in the PTI government following its assumption of leadership.
Keywords
CDA, corpus linguistics, Naya (New) Pakistan, newspapers, political discourse
Corresponding author:
Swaleha Bano Naqvi, Department of Marketing, National University of Sciences & Technology, Islamabad, Punjab 44000,
Pakistan.
Email: swaleha.naqvi@nbs.nust.edu.pk
Research Articles on South Asian Politics
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2022, Vol. 7(3) 521–538
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/20578911221105726
journals.sagepub.com/home/acp
Introduction
Populism exercises large-scale influence on public opinion, and many political actors make stra-
tegic use of this phenomenon to strengthen their political positions. In order to understand the
strong influence of populism, it is necessary to look at how it has evolved historically. Research
shows that there have been three successive waves of populism over the decades, namely
Latin-American populism, new-right populism, and agrarian populism (Taguieff, 2015). By the
mid-19th century, it was agrarian populism which held sway, representing as it did the egalitarian
struggle on behalf of Russian farmers. In the 1940s and 1950s, Latin-American populism gained
traction during the regime of Vargas in Brazil and Peron in Argentina. However, the populist
leaders in the vanguard of this wave appeared only to represent the people and their interests
against vested and dominant interests (Jagers and Walgrave, 2007). Following this, the new-right
populism which emerged in the 1970s prioritized issues such as taxes, immigration, nationalism,
and crime, while ignoring the real challenges of the people.
In regard to how populism operates through language, it has been argued that emotionality is a
key aspect of populist rhetoric (Wirz, 2018: 1114). The populist style entails the use of emotionally-
charged and slogan-like language (Mazzoleni, 2003: 5) which deploys “verbal radical-ism and sym-
bolic politics with the tools of contemporary political marketing to disseminate (…) ideas among
the electorate”(Betz and Immerfall, 1998: 2). Further, populism persuades people by appealing
to their feelings and establishing a false sense of solidarity, with populist leaders relying on the “iden-
tification of sameness among [their] members and incite[ment of] suspicion of those who might question
the message”(Mostov, 2021: 1). Turning to descriptions of populism, key aspects of the notion from the
political perspective are explicated. An early definition (Dix, 1978) views it as “a political movement
which challenges established elites in the name of a union between a leader.”Along similar lines, a
later perspective by Roberts (2006: 127) suggests that populism comprises the “political mobilization
of mass constituencies by personalistic leaders who challenge established elites.”A more recent defin-
ition by Jansen (2011: 82) suggests that populism is “a large-scale political project”which catalyzes
“social sectors”usually confined to the periphery into “publicly visible and contentious political
action, while articulating an anti-elite, nationalist rhetoric that valorizesordinary people.”From the per-
spective of discourse, Kazin (1998: 1) positions populism as a:
…language whose speakers conceive of ordinary people as a noble assemblage not bounded narrowly
by class, view their elite opponents as self-serving and undemocratic, and seek to mobilize the former
against the latter.
While the three waves of populism outlined earlier offer some insights into the characteristics of
populism, it may also be understood in terms of thin or thick descriptions. Drawing upon Mudde’s
(2004) notion of populism as a “thin ideology,”Neuner and Wratil (2020: 552) suggest that accord-
ing to such a perspective “populist political forces win votes by attacking the ‘corrupt’elites, calling
for direct influence of the ‘people,’and stressing the homogeneity of the people.”In thin definitions,
the emphasis is on the people. Neuner and Wratil (2020: 552) add that such populist appeals may be
viewed as an ideology or even the outcome of “a performative rhetorical style.”While a ‘thin’
ideology may be understood as a ‘discursive frame,’when populism is infused with thick ideologies
(e.g. nationalism), such thicker ideologies mold content of the elite as well as the people (Jupskås,
2020: para 1). In essence, populism represents a style of communication frame which is used to
appeal to the masses and to claim to speak in their name (Berdan, 1981; Jenkins, 2003). Populist
522 Asian Journal of Comparative Politics 7(3)
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