News Media Coverage on Human Rights Issues: Comparative Analysis of the Times of India and the Hindu Sahu Gopal Krushna1,*, Ahmad Afaq2 1Assistant Professor, Department of Mass Communication, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh-202 002, Uttar Pradesh, India 2Research Scholar, Department of Mass Communication, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh-202 002, Uttar Pradesh, India *Corresponding author email id: sahugk6@gmail.com
Abstract The media is a powerful tool to reform the society as it creates consciousness among the people regarding their rights and responsibilities. In a democratic country, media is essentially reckoned as an ombudsman, protector and agenda setter. In other words, media can ensure that the voices of the marginalised sections of the society be heard by governments. Although news media organisations can cover limited number of issues related to human rights violations due to the organisational limitations and pre-determined ideological tone of their respective organisations, the crucial role played by them in creating consciousness among people cannot be underestimated. As soon as print media give priority to news items related to human rights, it gets fomented and becomes the issue of public interest. Keeping in mind the importance of the media agenda, it has been attempted in the present study to investigate, understand and describe the content of various issues relevant to human rights in two mainstream National English dailies–The Hindu and The Times of India. Further, the study explores the existing frames in the news discourse through framing analysis technique. It is found that newspapers under study given more emphasis on negative aspects of human rights related issues. However, there has been a slight difference in tone of reporting between two newspapers under study while covering news related to human rights violations. Top Keywords Human rights, Content analysis, News frames, News media, Frame analysis. Top |