A Narrative Analysis of Political Satire on Pakistani Electronic Media

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate how the Satire programs Hasb-e-Haal (Statusquo, 2009), and KhabarDar (vigilant, 2017) produced and aired on private Pakistan Television channels influenced and formed a perception of the viewers about political issues persisted at that historical moment of time. With the comedic revelations of politicians' immoral behavior and corruption, this paper unfolds the unethical attitude of the journalists and the TV channels that lean towards political parties for their personal interests. It was found that the Express-News' Khabardar has friendly coverage towards PTI and its personalities and antagonistic towards PML-N and its political figures. Dunya News' Hasb-e-Hall coverage is opposite to the former. The performers posed as politicians use derogatory language to the opponents. A cynical comedy about political personalities plays a major role in opinion building and changing the political attitude of the masses and thus influence their voting behavior.