Exploring Ideological Construction through COVID-19 Related Headlines in Selected Pakistani Newspapers

Abstract

The present study explores ideological construction related to corona pandemic with the application of critical discourse analysis and socio-cognitive approach to depict the domination of political authorities through COVID-19 related headlines in selected Pakistani newspapers. This study investigates news discourse critically to observe how this particular type of discourse unveils implicit beliefs, achieve the power and practice hegemony in the society. The researchers have followed the qualitative approach and the news headlines of two English-language Pakistani newspapers; ‘Dawn’ and ‘The News’ have collected through purposive sampling technique. Critical Discourse Analysis (1998) and Triangular Socio-Cognitive approach of Van Dijk(2009) are applied to this study. The findings revealed that ideological construction through COVID-19 related headlines (de)emphasize our/their performance over corona crisis. Use of active constructions and instances with absence of nominalization imply that speakers of news headlines try to represent themselves the sovereign and supreme to manipulate the readers’ ideology and actions over corona pandemic as the biological issue of corona has been made politicized by the selected world leaders. Moreover, Ideology regarding COVID-19 is propagated by authorities to practice societal oppression and power abuse to manipulate the beliefs of the innocent masses. Upcoming researchers can use the data through COVID-19 related headlines in different time frame or can conduct the research as an extension of the present study. Furthermore, comparative study of newspapers and electronic media discourse through COVID-19 related headlines, speeches and interviews can be under taken for the application of the present framework in future.