Post-Truth Politics: An Analysis of News Channel’s Coverage of Political Leaders’ Speeches in Public Processions in Pakistan

Abstract

This study attempts to find out the symptoms of post-truth political culture — politics of emotions rather than rational political debate — in the context of Pakistan. The data in the form of political speeches of politicians from March to July 2022 was taken from Youtube. Political speeches of leaders of four main political parties of Pakistan were analyzed: Imran Khan from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Maryam Nawaz from Pakistan Muslim league (PML-N), Bilawal Bhutto Zardari from Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and Maulana Fazal Ur Rehman from Jamiat-Ulema-Islami (JUI-F). Using the quantitative content analysis method, the content of 26 speeches, consisting of almost 854 minutes, was broken down into nine categories: policy, facts, false statements, religion, party, promises, performance, public issues, and opposition. Agenda setting theory laid the theoretical approach to observe post-truth dilemmas in political speeches in the public processions. The observed categories were compared across all politicians descriptively: the speeches had 2% facts; 4% false statements; 5% discussion on policy making; 41% arguments attacking the opponent political party; 12% religious references; 12% promises; 10% arguments were about the leader’s own political party; 5% were based on their past performance; whilst, only 9% addressed the public issues.