Narrative Warfare and Media Framing in the Pahalgam Incident: A Comparative Analysis of Indian, Pakistani and Western Media Discourse

The attack on the city of Pahalgam in 22 April 2025, which resulted in the death of 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir, had a dramatic effect on the India–Pakistan relations, leading to a sudden deterioration in the relations between the two countries and finally to armed clashes in May 2025. The study explores the competing narratives created by Indian, Pakistani and western media about the incident and ensuing crisis. The study is based on Framing Theory, Agenda-Setting Theory and the notion of narrative warfare and adopts a qualitative comparative discourse analysis to analyze the source selection, the attribution of responsibility, lexical selection, thematic emphasis, representation of terrorism, national identity, and military and diplomatic reaction. The results show that there are significant differences between the three media environments. The media in India mainly portrayed the issue in terms of national security, terrorism, victimization and threat from Pakistan narratives. The emphasis of the Pakistani media was on denial, uncertainty of facts, Kashmir's political status which is yet to be resolved and fear of possible exploitation by the Indian side. The Western media more often took an attribution-sensitive and de-escalatory tone, focusing on human rights issues, conflicting claims, the Kashmir issue and escalation dangers between the two nuclear nations. The study has shown that news media were not only spatiotemporal platforms for exchanging information but also spaces of contestation and legitimation of narratives and politics, and has added to the field of conflict communication studies, media framing, strategic narratives and studies on security in South Asia.