A Critical Discourse Analysis of Newsworthiness in English and Urdu Newspaper Headlines In Pakistan

Abstract

This research is a comparative study of Newsworthiness (importance of news items) in English and Urdu newspapers. This research is a qualitative study that explores the impact of the placement of news items in the newspapers. The data has been collected from three Urdu and their counterpart English newspapers from the same groups. The placement of same news items in different newspapers will help to know about the policies and ideologies of newspapers. The research investigates how the readership influences the newsworthiness of news items. The language of the news items is studied to discover the relation between the placement and the language used in the same news items inter and intra newspaper groups. The results are not only interpreted on the basis of frequencies of news but also on the basis of lexical choices made by newspaper editors through qualitative method of research.

Keywords: CDA, Newspaper, Headlines, Newsworthiness