CRITICAL SOCIAL ANALYSIS OF LETTERS TO EDITORS IN PAKISTANI PRINT MEDIA: A GENRE BASED STUDY

Abstract

The study examines the genre of letters to editor in Pakistani print media, specifically analyzing Dawn newspaper from 2025, January 1 to 2025, January 15 .The study aims to explore how social and political issues are discursively represented by means of letters to the editor. Present research focuses on these letters as they use specific language and such rhetorical strategies which construct and convey particular ideologies to the readership.  Hence in order to delve deep into this research a mixed method approach has been opted which comprises both quantitative and qualitative data analysis concluding into frequency analysis and thematic analysis respectively. The theoretical framework is based on   Vijay. K. Bhatia’s Genre Based Analysis and Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis as to examine selected letters from the Dawn newspaper. The findings show that social issues for example healthcare negligence, inadequate infrastructure and urban mismanagement are prominent issues highlighted in the discourse, making up 37.14% of the letters. Similarly, 23.81% of the letters emphasize the hot political issues, including corruption, failure of good governance and bureaucratic inefficiency. These genre based letters investigate persuasive strategies like metaphor and emotive language to challenge power structures. Conclusively, this study accentuates the importance of letters to editor as a socially significant genre that both reflects and shapes public opinion in Pakistani print media.

Keywords:  Genre analysis, letter to editor, Critical Discourse Analysis, Genre Based Analysis, Social Issues, Political Concerns, Pakistani Print Media