An Investigation of Media communication

A Thematic Analysis of Ideologies Promoted by Newspaper Headlines

Abstract

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This study investigated Pakistani English newspapers headlines to explore distinctive ideologies. It focuses on; how different perspectives can be manipulated with the language of newspapers headlines by using various discursive techniques and how they can be affected by the mindset of the target readership. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore the bottom meanings merged into the headlines. Data have been collected from 'Dawn' and 'Daily Times' newspapers dated from 1st December 2019 to 31st March 2020. To carry out this research, the researcher employed techniques of thematic analysis. A frequency of themes in both newspapers has been drawn in diagrams. Some themes are on low percentile ratio with disseminated ideology, and those are: Sports, Religious, Feminism, Terrorism and Economics and some are high in percentage with disseminated ideology in both English newspapers are Politics, National and International. The highly used discursive techniques in ‘Dawn’ newspaper are Actor Description, Authority, Consensus, Evidentiality, Hyperbole, Irony, National Self-Glorification, Polarization, Presupposition, Victimization, Acronym, Abbreviation, Generalization, and Preposition. On the other side, in the ‘Daily Times’, the highly used discursive techniques are Categorization, Consensus, Lexicalization, National Self-Glorification, Number Game, Polarization, Vagueness, Punctuation, Abbreviation, Euphemism etc. Therefore, ‘Dawn’ used twenty-six discursive strategies and ‘Daily Times’ used twenty-four discursive strategies in four months on the front-page main headlines. The findings revealed that ‘Dawn’ used more discursive techniques for ideological manipulation in its headlines than ‘Daily Times'. The results showed that the words, sentences, phrases, and sentences significantly indicate the ideological intention hidden in headlines.