Islamabad, Pakistan: Civil and military leadership on Friday sat again together and deliberated how to handle propaganda against the state of Pakistan.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif presided over the meeting that was attended by the federal and provincial leadership, representatives from all four provinces, as well as Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, alongside military and civilian leaders.
This meeting was one of dozens held since 2022 to deliberate how to do media management of the country. In all meetings, different ideas surfaced; many of the participants shared hundreds of recommendations, but the result so far is that the state looks helpless to counter the false narrative that enemies are surely establishing against Pakistan. In the last year, the government had hired several communication experts with hefty amounts reaching over millions per month but results are unknown. There is no doubt there is a will to get results, but one can say there is a lack of expertise to get the way out of the situation.
Media management and narrative building are the foremost duties of the civilian media managers of the country, while military media management relates only to military-related activities/actions such as fighting and killing terrorism. Every working journalist gets information around the clock and several times in a single day about the kinetic actions being taken against terrorists. However, from the civilian’s side, only statements of ministers reach working journalists. Hardly any content produced directly hitting to false narrative of enemies is received by media men.
“There is virtually no system available where bureaucrats have the heart to listen to practitioners and academicians and give weightage to their opinions.”
It is understood by communication experts that narrative building cannot be established through media statements, news items and press conferences. Friday’s meeting focused on unveiling the attackers responsible for the Jaffar Express assault and ensuring that every effort is made to expose them to the international community. Additionally, the participants agreed to counter anti-national campaigns on both traditional and digital media platforms effectively.
The decision is timely and excellent, but will it be like several decisions that were taken in the past to establish counter-counter-narrative strategy? Does the government of Pakistan have a platform where media experts, communication academicians, practitioners, official media managers, anthropologists, writers, book authors, dramaturges, scriptwriters, psychologists, semioticians, and historians sit together regularly and review every word used by anti-state campaigns? The bureaucratic structure of Pakistan works piecemeal, having no experience and desire to work in an all-inclusive and synchronized way. There is virtually no system available where bureaucrats have the heart to listen to practitioners and academicians and give weightage to their opinions. Since all powers lie with permanent bureaucracy, there is no need to prove themselves because bureaucrats would not be sent home even if they do not deliver anything.
Since government of Pakistan looks serious to mitigate false narratives the country is facing, there is a dire to establish a gala of experts in philosophy of communication and propagation without adding relatives to fill the seats.
