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Combating Bullets With a Pen: The Importance of Free Media and the Safety of Journalists for Building a Public Sphere for Democracy in Pakistan

Combating Bullets With a Pen: The Importance of Free Media and the Safety of Journalists for Building a Public Sphere for Democracy in Pakistan

Fahad Mahmood
Copyright: © 2020 |Pages: 18
ISBN13: 9781799812982|ISBN10: 1799812987|ISBN13 Softcover: 9781799812999|EISBN13: 9781799813002
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-1298-2.ch004
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MLA

Mahmood, Fahad. "Combating Bullets With a Pen: The Importance of Free Media and the Safety of Journalists for Building a Public Sphere for Democracy in Pakistan." Handbook of Research on Combating Threats to Media Freedom and Journalist Safety, edited by Sadia Jamil, IGI Global, 2020, pp. 54-71. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1298-2.ch004

APA

Mahmood, F. (2020). Combating Bullets With a Pen: The Importance of Free Media and the Safety of Journalists for Building a Public Sphere for Democracy in Pakistan. In S. Jamil (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Combating Threats to Media Freedom and Journalist Safety (pp. 54-71). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1298-2.ch004

Chicago

Mahmood, Fahad. "Combating Bullets With a Pen: The Importance of Free Media and the Safety of Journalists for Building a Public Sphere for Democracy in Pakistan." In Handbook of Research on Combating Threats to Media Freedom and Journalist Safety, edited by Sadia Jamil, 54-71. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2020. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-1298-2.ch004

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Abstract

Journalists have always faced restrictions on their freedom of speech and threats to their security in Pakistan. During Pakistan's 2018 general elections, the country's media was also managed and controlled to create a maligned pubic-sphere to misguide the Pakistani voters. Public sphere was maligned through misinformation, political propaganda and distortion of facts and maneuvering of journalism. This created ill effects for public discourses on democracy. Findings obtained through in-depth interviews of twenty journalists, who covered elections 2018, revealed that strategic media maneuvering was witnessed during the country's 2018 elections. Media freedom was largely constrained and journalists faced physical, psychological and financial threats in the line of their duty and for their efforts to foster democracy in the country. This study revealed Pakistan's long history of dictatorship, weak political system, and national psyche of control as the major reasons for such happenings.

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