Muhammad Akbar

Image of President Asif Ali Zardari as Portrayed by Daily Dawn and News: A Discourse Analysis of Editorials

The main objective of this research study is to investigate as to how the image of President Zardari is being presented in the print media discourses. The media in Pakistan is enjoying a free environment after a long martial law of President musharraf. The Jang group is a leading group having media outlets in the field of print as well as in electronic. The Jang group, in general, has a biased perception and involved in an anti government media campaign since the government took over in 2008. Since the Pakistani media has been enjoying a powerful status as a main stake holder to make or to topple down any government. Pressure groups mend and mould the media agenda if it is contrary to their news agenda through some media groups. Further this study should be analyzed in the context of the interests of some big powers which influence and shape news agenda of poor countries and specially after 9/11 there has been a paradigm shift in the world’s media. In this context the media coverage in Pakistan shows that the President Zardari has portrayed negatively in most of the print media outlets of Jang group. Most of the editorials in leading newspapers portrayed President Zardari as corrupt, untrustworthy, disloyal, criminal and dishonest by undermining his political status and political achievements. This paper discusses the difference of portrayal of his image in two leading English language newspapers of different groups - The News and Dawn. The News belongs to Jang group while The Dawn owned by Herald publications Ltd. The researcher explores the trend by using framing and priming theories. Editorials of these two Pakistani newspapers published from Nov, 2009 to Jan 2010 were selected. Altogether, 180 editorials were read out from these two newspapers, 37 editorials from The News and 26 editorials from The Dawn were found relevant to the issue of NRO with special reference to Mr. Zardari. The paper concludes that The News constructs a biased and negative image of President Zardari by its speculative language, tone and representation while writing on NRO in the editorial discourses Dawn reflects the same issue in neutral and balanced way.

Photojournalism in Pakistan: Ethics and Responsibilities Analysis of Urdu Newspapers Front Pages

Photojournalism occupies very important place in media in this digital age of communication. Since the picture is most effective tool of communication, it conveys meaning in the most attractive and truthful manner. At the same time, it is very often exploited for the selfish ends of the media organization irrespective of the values and norms of the society. It not only goes against the values and norms of the society but it also depicts in picture the vice and immoralities in attractive manner. This paper explores the practices and preferences of Pakistani print media in the flourishing field of photojournalism. For the purpose, front pages of three leading Urdu newspapers The Daily Jang, Express and Nawa-e-Waqt were selected to measure the nature of photojournalism in print media. The researchers selected four major events of suicide attacks in the years 2007, 2010 and 2011. These bloodiest events covered by newspapers extensively with images and body parts of victims on front pages. To catch maximum readership the print media frequently displayed bloody and violent terrorize images of the victims in suicide attacks, bomb blasts, firings and accidents on front pages. These newspapers did not consider ethical codes as an important and essential component for photojournalism.

Optimizing Cold Compression Deformation to Remove Residual Stresses in Die Forged Disc of Al-Mg-Si Alloy

Quenching residual stresses in Al-Mg-Si alloy forged disc were balanced via cold deformation compression method. In this experiment firstly, the forged disc of Φ210x52 mm was prepared from extruded stock material of Φ160x90 mm through close die forging technique. Next, the forged discs were quenched in water and cold compressed immediately. Finally, the discs were artificial aged to finish in T652 temper. Close die forging and cold compression deformation was performed on a 1200 Ton hydraulic forging press. The amount of cold compression deformation was varied from 2.0 to 5.0% to gauge the optimum level of cold compression for the removal of quenching residual stresses. The residual stresses were measured in terms of dimensional stability of the machined component. Results showed that the 3.8% cold compression deformation was the optimized value for the work piece geometry under investigation. Further, the effect of cold (room temperature) and hot water (~60°C) quenching on the residual stresses was also studied and compared with that of cold compression method.