Obsessed with Pakistan, the Indian media and Bollywood industry have once again been exposed, this time by their own media scholar and prominent researcher, Anilesh Kumar.
According to the research paper portraying the case study of India’s Republic TV, claims that Pakistan is being ignored by Indian media have been completely exposed by the media scholar.
According to the research, Pakistan is at the top of the internationally broadcast news stories by the channel, with 30.8% of the international news stories examined in a sample of Indian prime-time television.
The major developments being made in the US and China stand far behind in the list compared to Pakistan.
The study also analysed 346 episodes of Republic TV monologues.
Its analysis found that “Pakistan” appeared 423 times, making it one of the most frequently used terms in the dataset and appearing more often than “India” and “Gandhi” in the table cited in the research.
The findings raise questions about the prominence given to Pakistan in Indian television news and the way the country is framed in prime-time political commentary.
The pattern has also been visible online. During the India-Pakistan military escalation in February 2019, 13.74 million India-originating Twitter conversations were recorded over two days, according to figures reported at the time by the Hindustan Times, citing social-listening firm Autumn Grey.
Pakistan has also remained a recurring theme in Bollywood. Films including Dhurandhar, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, the Gadar series and the Tiger franchise have incorporated Pakistan, cross-border tensions or India-Pakistan relations into their storylines.
The study is focused on specific television programming and provides evidence about the scale and framing of Pakistan-related coverage.
The answer remains a matter of debate, but the data suggest that Pakistan occupies a far more prominent place in parts of India’s media landscape than claims of it being simply “ignored”.
