Mediated Public Diplomacy: Frame-building Contest Between the United States and Pakistan During a Conflict

Abstract

This study examined the mediated public diplomacy (MPD) contest between the United States (US) and Pakistan in promoting their preferred frames in foreign media during a conflict: the death of Osama bin Laden. MPD is the process through which a nation constructs favourable frames and communicates them via the mass media to build a positive image in a foreign country (Entman, 2008) and to promote its foreign policy. Using frame building and Entman’s (2008) theory of MPD, the study first content analyzed news articles published in The New York Times of the US and The Dawn of Pakistan and official releases published by the governments in the two nations to investigate frames they constructed about the death of bin Laden. Next, it analyses news articles published in the foreign media of Australia, India, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to examine the extent to which these frames were adopted by newspapers in these foreign nations. Analysis shows that the US-sponsored frames (government and media) dominated the foreign media in Australia, India and Saudi Arabia. However, in Egypt, the US was not successful in promoting its preferred frames. The study concludes that in contested public diplomacy over a single conflicting event, political and cultural proximities to a foreign nation do not imply that a nation will be successful in dominating the media of the foreign nation. The study suggests that MPD is a complex process that involves multiple factors and their interactivity that determines successful frame building in the international arena.