Abstract

The study is designed to investigate the treatment of developmental issues in Pakistani and Indian Newspapers from 2012 to 2014.The overall news coverage of developmental issues remained less in term of number of published news, less in term of prominent placement, less in term of space and less in term of international developmental coverage. However, the ratio of developmental issues remained favorable. The results of the study showed that the attention is not being given to the developmental issues in Pakistani and Indian print media so its recommends development journalism and trainings of journalists in both countries for the prosperity and development.

Key Words

Development, Treatment, Placement, Prominence, Communication

Introduction

Today development journalism is considered as a notion which helps to improve poverty conditions, health, education and social norms in developing countries through analysis and positive criticism. It may cover the issues of economic, development, food security, agriculture, literacy, health, information technology, medicine, housing conditions, gender equality, rural and urban development, environmental sustainability, employment etc. It also proposes projects for the national development with their consequence and provides suggestions for the betterment in the projects. It has encouraged the cooperation between the nations and the institutions for the improvement of living standards of people of any country or society. (Smith, 2014)

Nigeria is one of the third world free press country that set the example about the usage of communication for social and economic development. Nigerian journalists relatively free comment on governmental activities even criticized in negative way but these journalists focuses on developmental issues that is why developmental journalism flourished in Nigeria. (Michael & Gary, 1986)

Development journalism focuses on developmental issues as compared to conventional journalism which mainly provides services to the power and inform and entertain the 3 people while development journalism contributes to the socio-economic development through its focus. (Abdullahi, 2013)

Development was seen by the scholars in the past as the attainment of high economic, per capita income, mass production, high technology, urbanization, infrastructure, communication facilities, massive investment and other factors. (Jimoh, 2007)

Seers (1997) stated that development means different to different people. It varies according to changes occurring in the political, economic, ethical, cultural, technological, scientific and social values of a given society. Development gears towards positive change. 

According to new paradigm of development, there is a vital role of media in national development that is why development communication and development journalism has emphasized to facilitate the mass mobilization, participation and group efficacy in the development planning. Thus communication scholars worked on it and highlighted the role of journalism in few points; media provides information about development problems and their possible solutions, inform about self-development of the different groups to motivate the other ones, act as a catalyst between beneficiary and policy makers, and to motivate and activate bureaucracy on the launching of new development projects at all levels. (Parker & Mahananda, 1997)

No doubt, development journalism is a matter of debate, some scholars are criticizing but after 1920s UNESCO put emphasis on it and under developing countries saw it as a mean of promotion of economic development. This type of news reporting does not mean only to exposes problem particular development topics but it is also a solution orientated approach with more follow up stories. (Biswas, 2007)

Development journalism is more than an investigative reporting in poor countries. It is the community journalism to achieve improving health, education, justice, infrastructure, and bringing people together. (George, 2009)

The era of capitalism is market oriented and capital forces hold the media and neglect the developmental aspects of journalism which may be canon of journalism. Gandhi focused on development journalism. His field of interest was politics and economics but he also treated the nature, health, education, social relation, science, culture, technology and religion as developmental issue. (Kumar, 2012)

Researchers and newspapers organizations conducted few experiments in the field of development journalism to accelerate the development in the country through media. It is bridging the gap between urban-rural societies through communication. In India and some other countries of the world, the media is giving attention on the social and developmental issues and educating and informing people regarding day-to-day issues. (Kumar, 2012) But unfortunately, the journalists of Pakistan are untrained and media becomes business in the country that is why the practice of development journalism is very limited. The government owned media is only praising the government on developmental projects which laid to unhealthy practice in the field of journalism as well as governments using public media for their own sake of interests. However, some private media organizations are practicing development journalism as portraying village issues, economy issues, health issues, agriculture issues, infrastructure and developmental projects. They rationally criticize and analyse the plans and policies and suggest better ways of success in the project while the overall ratio of the practice of development journalism is decreased in the country.

Statement of the Problem

This study has been designed to check the treatment of developmental issues in the Pakistani and Indian print media during 2012 to 2014 in terms of space, placement, tendency, area and column size of the developmental issues in the selected newspapers.

Literature Review

The researcher reviewed books, research articles, research journals, newspapers and magazines regarding development journalism researches and came to the conclusion that development journalism has its own key scholar and studies. Some scholars investigate what the development journalism is; while others provide their observations of what development journalism is to be. It is much needed to increase the boundaries of development journalism research. The brief review of available literature is given as under;

Mckey (1993) conducted a content analysis on in-depth news practice of development journalism and stated that the idea of development news has survived because it focused on news about rural development, population welfare, health, education, women and science. Mckey also highlighted the fact that there is a very small research work done in the field of development journalism as only 34 articles published in international journals from 1960s to 2000. It has also showed that this work decreased by the passing of years after 1990s.

Perrottet (2015) conducted a research through content analysis of newspapers on “News values in three pacific nations: A case study in development journalism and the reporting of the Pacific islands forum in Fiji, Vanuatu and New Zealand” and concluded that each country has its own news focus and own priorities of development. The researcher also discussed the Asian development journalism approach and global communication structure as well. The researcher also concluded that development journalism is not an alternative of western models of journalism as it might not be fit in the environment. Development journalism is currently practiced in Pacific but the priorities of the development are different in the country and news values of development journalism are set according to the priorities.

Djokotoe (2013) mentioned ten guidelines for the development journalists that; broaden and humanized the development story, focused on common people, focused on unusual angels, use new events to explain issues, report from the field, avoid technical jargon, careful use of statistics, give follow up stories, and widely reading is the last guideline for the development journalists.

Murthy (2001) conducted a content analysis on four Indian newspapers regarding development coverage and concluded that the coverage remained unsatisfactory in the selected newspapers. Murthy use two English and two Telugu newspapers in his research. He focused on the twelve subject category in which one was development and development categories was comprised on 12 development themes drawn from previous research studies and India’s development goals. These categories were; education, health, housing, energy, agriculture, transport and communication, industry, ecology, national integration and human rights. It is noted that only 4 to 8 percent coverage was given by the selected newspapers to the development in which Telugu newspapers remained more in development coverage as compare to English. Telugu dailies focused on local themes while English dailies focused on national issues. Same as English newspapers focused on human rights and agriculture while Telugu focused on transport and communication. It is also noticed by the researcher that although the literacy and population control are on priority list of government agenda but the newspapers did not provide sufficient coverage. The researcher also concluded that coverage remained event oriented rather than process oriented.

Merican (1990) described in his article that development journalism reflects nothing more than the constraints on media in practicing. He further added that the development journalism is dependent on government for information gathering which affects the freedom of press. He also mentioned in his research that there is a relationship of economic prosperity and freedom of press but economic prosperity did not ensure the spread of freedom of press, however, constrained governments to some extent. So development journalism, economic prosperity and press freedom should not be mixed for properties of powers. 

Skjerdal (2011) conducted a research on case study of Ethiopia regarding development journalism revival as government of Ethiopia declared journalism as an official style of reporting for the state media. The researcher concluded that the development journalism is good in its theoretical framework but reporters feel difficulty when they convert their practices into it. He argued that the reporters face problems in three ways; ambiguity in development journalism concept and practice, secondly political inclination and thirdly there is a lack of participation of public in development journalism.

Domatob and Hall (1983) stated in their article that press in Africa is elite oriented and it has a little relevance with interest of public. So in this situation, the development journalism is a valuable. They also prescribed in their research that development journalism in modern Africa is largely grounded in neo-colonial realities.

Isiaka (2006) focused on the change in the development journalism as he proposed a paradigm shift from the mass media to group media. According to his research the group media approaches are more effective with the use of audio-visual aids in meetings, seminars, visits, discussions, workshops, demonstrations, and exhibitions for the reception of variety of information about development. the researcher identified seven strategies for the practice of group media approach in development journalism; rural audio, decentralization of the broadcast media, TV/video viewing centers, radio group, narrow casting, information centre and cyber cage. 

Kelleher (2014) highlighted in his master’s thesis that development journalism focused on active model in Rwandan newspapers (The News Times & Imvaho Nshya) in 2013, however a lot of weaknesses observed in the implementations of the model. The researcher claimed that the newspapers support pro-business development agenda without challenging and audit, while the representation of ordinary remained very poor in the Rwandan newspapers which showed the lack of implementation of the development journalism approach. The researcher also mentioned that Rwanda has no positive experience regarding free press and Rwandan has faced many structural challenges including; lack of training, restrictive governments and commercial environment. However government officials, Rwandan society and journalists considered Rwanda media as a successful tool used in the national development. 

Hujanen (2013) described in his research that the subjects and objects secured their places in development on the basis of control tools. The research also highlighted that some ideals, actors or voices remained prominent but others have to struggle to recognize there self. Newsroom focused on market driven news which are in the powerful position rather than less powerful voices as the stories of societal problems. The researcher said that it is only the ideal that journalism i.e. development journalism is serving the society.

Abdullahi (2013) mentioned in his article that the conventional journalism and developmental journalism are different from each other, development journalism focused on rural areas, common public and development issues while conventional journalism focused urban areas, political issues and elite class. The researcher also said that the conventional journalism focused on event while development journalism on process of the issues, reason of the issue and solution of the development problem, development journalism worked as a catalyst for Nigeria.

The above mentioned review of available literate showed the different aspects of development journalism and research boundaries which conducted in this regard. It showed development journalism to be a model of conflicting imperatives and influences. Development journalism popularized due to its government support and watchdog role. Previous researches also showed the work of development journalism for national unity, individual’s empowerment and nation building.

Theoretical Framework

The present study conducted under “Development Media Theory” as this theory provides the base to development journalism researches. This theory used by the researcher to check the way of usage of communication, content of news, writing style and the subjects and presentation of the news. This remained helpful from the operational definition of the issue to the completion of the research and to find out the suggestions.

Objectives of the Study

The main objective of the study is to check the treatment of developmental issues in print media of Pakistan and India, while other objectives of the study are:

1. To check the importance of developmental themes as compared to other themes by examining the frequency and space allocated to the themes on the front, back and inside pages of the selected newspapers.

2. To know the difference in frequency and placement allocated to developmental themes related to local, national and foreign items.

Significance of the Study

This research study will help the journalists, policy makers, media owners, academia, advertisers, students and the government officials to deal with the developmental issues and proper usage of development journalism in country to change the underdeveloped nation into a developed nation.

Hypothesis

H1: It is likely that the selected newspapers would publish more national developmental news as compared to international developmental news.

H2: Ratio of favorable treatment of developmental issues would be greater in Daily Times of India as compared to Daily Dawn.

H3: Daily Jang give more favorable developmental coverage as compared to unfavorable coverage than the Daily Sahafat.

H4: Indian selected newspapers give more prominent coverage to developmental issues than the Pakistani selected newspapers.

H5: It is estimated that selected Urdu newspapers give lower column space coverage to the developmental stories than the English newspapers.

Research Design

The researcher used content analysis as a research design to gather data and two proportion, frequency distribution and chi square test for analysis of data. The selected Newspapers during 2012 to 2014 are used as population of the study while complete news story is considered as unit of analysis for the study.

Operational Definitions of Inter Related Concepts

Developmental News

News related to category one and its sub-categories are coded as developmental news. The news which comprised on developmental process, planning, policies, procedures, information, education, persuasion, inspiration, significant, benefits, weakness, government initiatives, public involvement, rural focus and suggestions are identifies as developmental news.

National Developmental News

The news related to the country’s development where from the newspaper published is considered as national development news.

International Developmental News

The developmental news of foreign countries, which published in the concerned newspaper for information and inspiration, is called as international developmental news.

Prominent Coverage

Prominent coverage means coverage of developmental aspects which published on front or back page is considered prominent coverage.

Less Prominent Coverage

Less prominent coverage means coverage of developmental aspects which is given on inside pages is considered less prominent coverage.

High Column Space Size Coverage

The developmental news which comprises of five to eight column space is considered as high column space size coverage.

Low Column Space Size Coverage

The developmental news which comprises of one to four column space size is considered as lower column space size coverage.

Directional Analysis

The slant wise analysis of gathered news is considered as directional analysis. Slant divided into;

i. Favorable

ii. Unfavorable

iii. Neutral

Favorable

The researcher considered the story favorable on the basis of how it reflected cooperation, economic strength and stability, social cohesion, growths and positive developments in the implementation of schemes.

Unfavorable

The developmental story determined unfavorable on the basis of how it reflected conflicts, indifferent attitudes of government or any other group or individuals, delayed decision effecting development, economic instability, disorganization, negative occurrence of developments and weakness concern issues in development.

Neutral

The developmental story neither negative nor positive considered as neutral developmental theme. The lack of controversial material story also considered as neutral slant development theme story.

Results and Analysis of the Study

The researcher gathered 41167 developmental news from selected newspapers during the purposed period of research. All the gathered news are divided into fifteen different categories according to the nature and subject of data. The researcher analysed the gathered data by using simple percentage method, chi-square test and proportional test for hypothesis analysis. Whole data analyzed in term of developmental aspects wise, slant wise, space and placement wise and national and international development news wise. The detailed presentation, analysis and description of gathered data are given ahead;

H1: It is likely that the selected newspapers would publish more national developmental news as compared to international developmental news

Pearson Chi-Square = 36.587, DF = 5

Likelihood Ratio Chi-Square = 17.111, DF = 5

Calculated P-Value=0.004

Result is significant

H4: Indian selected newspapers give more prominent coverage to developmental issues than the Pakistani selected newspapers.

Test and CI for Two Proportions