Policing the Priming and Gatekeeping Dilemma: A Comparative Analysis of Pakistan Democratic Movement in ARY News & Geo News

This study aims to assess the coverage of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) in prime-time news bulletins of private national television news channels: ARY News & Geo News. The researcher carried out a content analysis to address issues such as misrepresentation, fabrication, manipulation, and under-representation of activities and events related to the coverage of PDM. Using the theoretical framework of ‘Priming’ in Agenda Setting Theory and Gatekeeping Theory, a comparative analysis has been conducted in relation to the coverage of PDM’s four main processions in Lahore, Bahawalpur, Multan, and Peshawar. The researcher selected 16 prime-time news bulletins of both ARY News & Geo News — through the purposive sampling technique — from 22nd Nov to 23rd January 2021. Eight of these news bulletins were aired on the days of the processions; while the other eight were aired the day following these processions. The findings of this study indicated that in comparison to Geo News, ARY News was more anti-biased in the representation of events concerning PDM — as it manipulated the perception of its viewers regarding PDM by feeding them fabricated and manipulative news. Moreover, ARY News also under-represented the actual concerns of PDM.