DOMINANCE OF US OFFICIALS: A CASE STUDY OF THE MEDIA COVERAGE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN’S DEATH IN AMERICAN, BRITISH AND PAKISTANI MEDIA

Khalid Sultan; Amir Hamza Marwan; Bakhtiar Khan Khattak

Khalid Sultan Mass Communication Department, College of Applied Sciences, OMAN.
Amir Hamza Marwan Journalism and Mass Communication Department, Peshawar University.
Bakhtiar Khan Khattak Department of Business Administration, Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan

Keywords: Bin Laden’s Death, Media Coverage, Dominance of US Officials, Agenda Setting, Journalistic Nationalism

Abstract

This research paper examines the dominance of the US and Pakistani officials in the coverage of three prominent newspapers of the close allies of War on Terror – Pakistan, United States and United Kingdom while covering the death of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The three newspapers are The New York Times from the US; The Guardian from UK and Dawn from Pakistan. The contents of these newspapers have been studied for ten consecutive days starting from May 2, 2011 – the day bin Laden was killed in the US raid. The findings – based on the quantitative content analysis – show that the US officials dominated the coverage as compared to the Pakistani officials, and thus influenced the agenda of the coverage.