New Media Versus Old Media: A Case of Pakistan

Abstract

The article analyzes the way Noble Laureate  Malala Yousafzai, a campaigner for women education in Swat, in northern Pakistan, who was attacked by the militants, was portrayed  by Facebook users in Pakistan. The attack on Malala Yousafzai drew strong reaction from majority population in the country and the international community. It was widely condemned by the mainstream media in the country. However, after the initial outpouring of anger, different conspiracy theories started emerging, casting aspersions on Malala Yousafzai, mostly appearing in the social media, bringing the new form of media as public sphere in Pakistan to the forefront. To understand that, content analysis of picture posts on the sampled Facebook pages, dividing into 1) pictures, 2) captions and 3) text, under categories of favorable and unfavorable, has been done to know how Malala was projected. The findings are that picture posts were equal in categories of favorable and unfavorable, showing not an overwhelming bias against Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan’s social media.

Keywords: Malala, Facebook, picture posts, extremists, education, foreign agent