Framing Climate Change in Pakistani Newspapers: A Study of Dawn and The News (Jan–Aug 2025)

Abstract

The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative content analysis with basic quantitative measures. This approach enabled the examination of coverage and framing of climate change in Dawn and The News International during the period from January to August 2025. The findings prove that the Scientific/Environmental frames were highly present and predetermined the cause of nearly 77 per cent of the reviewed papers. Second most common (22 percent) were political narratives, the subject of which was usually a government action or policy related. It is noteworthy that religious framing was missing. Economic Consequences and Human Interest dimensions were the most utilized in terms of the individual dimensions of framing and 1/3 of the total articles were utilized in the newspapers. Through such a highlight, one can see that the media were apprehensive about the financial cost and human sufferings caused by a change in climate. The second frame was the Responsibility Attribution, about 17 percent of the stories this was the case and the final frame was the Conflict frame which was experienced in about 7 percent of the stories. Dawn was focused on more editorials and government actions while The News International were more inclined towards making quick reports of what had happened. Despite such differences, however, in general, the media strategy was reactive. This research paper employs the framing theory by analyzing how the issue of climate change was reported by the newspapers and how the frames were present in their articles. The lack of adaptation, mitigation and solution-based journalism shows that there is the need to have a stronger, consistent and scientifically-based climate report in order to improve.