Exposure to News & Current Affairs on Private TV Channels & Political

Exposure to News & Current Affairs on Private TV Channels & Political Socialization among Young, Urban Pakistanis A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Institute for Media and Communication Studies, Department of Political and Social Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin. By Noor ul Aftab Berlin, 2020 Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Klaus Beck Second Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Joachim Trebbe Date of defense: 12.02.2021 Declaration of Independence I hereby declare that this dissertation is entirely my own work. All the material and sources used are duely acknowledged as references. This work is original and does not violate copyright laws. i Abstract This study aimed at investigating association between exposure to private news and current affairs TV channels and political socialization of young urban Pakistanis (N=300). Exposure to private news TV channels along with state-controlled news TV channels, public and private news radio channels, newspapers, weekly and monthly magazines and social media (Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp) was measured. Political socialization was operationalized as political interest, internal political efficacy and political participation (electoral and non-electoral). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Descriptive analysis revealed that private TV news channels were the dominant source of political information for the participants of the study. In inferential analysis, news consumption variables of each medium, was separately regressed with political interest, internal political efficacy and political participation. The findings revealed that among all the sources of news and current affairs, exposure only to private news TV channels were positively associated with political interest, internal political efficacy, and non-electoral political participation. Exposure to news and current affairs on any medium had no association with electoral (voting) participation of the respondents. ii Acknowledgements This research work would have not been possible without the support of many. First and foremost, I am grateful to my advisors, Prof Dr Klaus Beck and Prof Dr Joachim Trebbe for their continuous support throughout the project. Their valuable advices, encouragement and motivation made this journey easy and successful. I am indebted to the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and DAAD for financing my stay in Germany. Their grant freed me from financial woes and helped me focus on this project. Without their support, I would be unable to come to Germany and pursue my studies. To my teachers: thank you very much for your valuable cooperation. Your support in shape of writing referee reports, reviewing the research proposal and constant guidance enabled me to win the scholarship and subsequently completing my studies. To my parents, wife and son, Zalaan: I thank you for your emotional support and providing me with conducive environment to continue my studies. You were always there when I needed you the most. I am very thankful to my colleagues, friends and students for their support especially during pre- test, data collection and analysis. I am indebted to everyone who directly and indirectly helped me in completion of this project. Their efforts are acknowledged and will always be remembered. iii Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables .............................................................................................................................................. vi List of Figures ............................................................................................................................................ vii Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background ................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Political Socialization ................................................................................................................... 5 1.2.1 Measuring Political Socialization ................................................................................................ 6 1.3 Problem Statement ........................................................................................................................ 8 1.4 Hypotheses .................................................................................................................................. 10 1.5 Significance of the Study ............................................................................................................ 11 1.6 Thesis Overview ......................................................................................................................... 12 1.7 Limitations of the Study .............................................................................................................. 15 Chapter 2: Political Socialization ............................................................................................................ 16 2.1 Political Socialization ................................................................................................................. 16 2.1.1 Definitions of Political Socialization .................................................................................. 17 2.1.2 Approaches to Political Learning ........................................................................................ 20 2.1.3 Age and Political Socialization ........................................................................................... 22 2.2 Agencies of Political Socialization ............................................................................................. 26 2.2.1 Family in Political Socialization ......................................................................................... 27 2.2.2 Peer Groups and Political Socialization .............................................................................. 30 2.2.3 Schools and Political Socializatioin .................................................................................... 34 2.3 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 41 Chapter 3: Media and Political Socialization ......................................................................................... 42 3.1 Media as an Agency of Political Socialization ........................................................................... 42 3.2 Media Use and Political Norms, Attitudes, and Behavior .......................................................... 47 3.2.1 Political Norms and Values ................................................................................................. 48 3.2.2 Political Efficacy ................................................................................................................. 49 3.2.3 Political Trust ...................................................................................................................... 51 3.2.4 Political Cynicism ............................................................................................................... 53 3.2.5 Political Interest .................................................................................................................. 56 3.2.6 Political Attitudes and Beliefs ............................................................................................. 58 3.2.7 Political Behavior ................................................................................................................ 61 3.3 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 64 Chapter 4: Television and Political Socialization ................................................................................... 66 4.1 The beginning of the fare ............................................................................................................ 66 4.2 TV in Political Socialization of Children & Adolescents ........................................................... 67 4.3 TV and Political Socialization of Adults .................................................................................... 70 4.3.1 Mobilization Theory ........................................................................................................... 70 4.3.2 Media Malaise Theory ........................................................................................................ 76 4.4 Privatization of TV and Political Socialization ........................................................................... 81 4.4.1 Deregulation of TV and Political Socialization outside the US and Europe....................... 90 4.4.2 Privatization of TV in Pakistan and Political Socialization of Audiences .......................... 92 4.5 Hypotheses .................................................................................................................................

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