FRAMING NATIONAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES THROUGH A THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF LETTERS TO THE EDITOR FROM PUNJAB

Abstract

This study looks at how citizens of Punjab articulate and frame issues of nation and society in a second signature of the national public sphere: Letters to the editor published in regional newspapers. The research employs Entman’s framing theory to which Iyengar’s specificity of episodic or thematic frames is applied, and qualitative thematic analysis was used on 75 letters published from January to December 2024 in both The Tribune and Hindustan Times Papers (Punjab Edition). Five major themes emerged: The issues dealt with are those of governance and corruption, agricultural crisis, youth and migration, communal harmony and nationalism and civic infrastructure. The results suggest the dominance of thematic framing, when citizens engage more systematically and are able to identify system failures, to blame actors at the level of institution and to highlight possible solutions. However, differences among these categories of gender, age and rural–urban revealed the diversity of the public voice within a single province. Further, the contribution of the study to journalism and media studies is on the civic use of reader generated content as a mode of participatory discourse. It urges newsrooms to get past tokenism and meaningfully address concerns expressed in letters to the editor. Future studies based on this research should also examine regional media discourse across Indian states and seek to also include reader comments on digital news sites to further understand the growth of a new kind of public engagement.