Methodology

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of media on women

participation in political activities. In recent years, Media in Pakistan have gained the
prestige of major opinion maker in Pakistan society. It is said that the main portion of
time can air is given to political News, political talk shows and other political activities
like speeches, rallies, meetings and precessions.

The government of Pakistan relaxed the Media policy in 2000 and allowed a
number of News channels to broadcast. This has not only broken the monopoly of state-
owned media channels and provided variety of content but also raised the political
knowledge of the society. Hence this research was carried out to probe the impact of
News Media on women participation in political activities.

Fundamental motive of this study was to ascertain the impact of News Media on
political participation of women in Gujrat, Pakistan. The study intends to record the
demographic characteristics of News Media subscribers (Women aged 18-45 years only),
their consumption pattern and the influence which motivated them to be politically
active.

Major Hypothesis:-

The main hypothesis designed for the study was News Media are motivating
women of Gujrat for participation in political activities.

The core purpose of this study is to dig out the influence of News media on
women to participate in political activities like casting vote, attend political procession,
the core purpose of this study to dig out the impact of news media in motivating women
to participate in political activities. Therefore, the researcher was interested in examining
whether or not news media are changing political behaviour of women in Gujrat, Pakistan
at gross root level in term of following indicators of political participation.

Vote Casting
Attend Political Rallies
Attend Political Procession
 Political Campaigners
Active Supporters
Party Office Bearer
Election Candidates
Polling agents
Women politicians

The researcher has selected above mentioned factors indicating the participation of
women in political activities based on the conclusion after reviewing the relevant
literature.

Sub Hypothesis

Following are some sub Hypothesis

Women find news media as a key factor for motivation in political process
More exposure to news media, more inclination towards political
participation.
Less the news media exposure, less the participation in political activities.

Variables of the Study:

The study has independent and dependent variables.

Independent Variables:

Impact/exposure to news media was an independent variable of the study. It

means the time spent by respondents on watching news media. Therefore, greater the
time spend on viewing news media greater the motivation to participate in political
activities.

Dependent Variables:

Participation in political activities by women is dependent variable is explained

below.
 Representation in political activities like MNA, Party Office bearer, Public Office
bearer
Participation in political activities like, attending procession and rallies, casting
vote, polling agents, active supporter, campaign etc.
Interest in politics like, watching political news, participation in debate on
politics, hypothesis for some political party/leader, follow particular political
ideology.

Conceptualization:

The major terms used in the study are defined below

Methodology

News Media

I. Formal

Encyclopedia Britannica (1986) describes News Media as an umbrella term for all the
sources and presentation of news and information, including: TV, Radio, Newspaper,
Magazines, Web pages and blogs.

II. Operational

In this research news media refers to Pakistani under news channels broadcasting local,
national and international news.

Exposure

Formal

Lying open to reader an accessible, liable to action Oxford Dictionary (1958).

An action of exposing, lying open setting for the program and liable to action and
influence (Webster, 1967, P.802)

Operational:
By exposure to news media, researcher intends to define the live channels. Moreover, it
also pertains to political rallies, procession, election process, assembly proceedings,
casting votes etc.

Women

Formal

A woman is an adult female in contrast to a man, adult male, a girl a female child. The
term women are used to indicate distinction based on sex and cultural gender role or both.

Webster dictionary says a woman is an adult human being.

Operational:

In this dissertation, the researcher has defined women as a female of the reproductive age
of 18 and above years old. The researcher has deliberately taken the women who have
reached the age of 18 which is official age to get national identity card, tool to caste vote.
The researcher has intentionally avoided the female below the age of 18 for the reason
they are not considered voters in Pakistan.

Participation:

Formal

Webster dictionary describes participation as an act of participating; furthermore, it is

state of being related to a larger whole.

Operational

In this study researcher means participation is part taken by women in political activities
such as rallies, processions, casting vote, bearing public and party office etc.

Motivation

The Webster dictionary defines motivation as

The act or process of giving someone a reason for doing something

A force or influence that causes someone to do something

Operational

In this thesis, researcher takes motivation as a factor that urges women to develop interest
in politics and resultantly participation in political activities.

Family and social interaction patterns:

Traditionally, families in Pakistan interact with each on different issues. Ours is a society
that is dominated by men in all spheres of life including politics. Most of the political
decisions are not only taken by men but they also inspire their women to participate in
political activities as per their desire. Same is the case with society; male dominating
society does not allow women to become freely political.

Operational

Family and social interaction with the advanced knowledge parted by media changes the
mindset of society that finely makes possible for women to participate in political
activities.

Research Approaches

There are approaches to study Mass Communication or any other social phenomenon
nowadays but derived from two. These two are positivist approach and interpretivist
approach. Both these approaches help the researcher to reach to the logical conclusion by
following different ways and process.

Positivist Theory

The idea that knowledge could be gained through empirical observable, measureable
phenomena examined through the scientific method. This theory based on empirical
observation guided by the scientific method, but it recognizes that humans and human
behavior are not as constant as elements of the physical words are Stanley J, Barren
concludes in his book. Mass Communication Theory, Foundation, Ferment, and Future
that goals of positivist theory are
 Explanation; Positivist use Quantitative
Prediction: Method of examining reality
Control

Interpretivist

Interpretivist, an approach to study different aspects of social life is considered as

contrary to positivist approach. This refers to the study of understanding especially by
Interpretivist action and text.

The goal of this approach is to understand how and why social behavior occurs. It started
from the interpretation of sacred books like Bible

Stanley J, Barren concludes that most modern form of Interpretivist theory is to focus on
understanding the culture of users of specific text.

Interpretivist use qualitative method of examining reality.

Approach used in this study:

Researcher use positivist approach based on scientific method because of following

reasons.

The main objective of this study is to determine what impact Urdu news channels allocate
toward the women participation in political activities.

This very objective is quantitative in nature as we take sample of our population and
study it independently.

Furthermore, researcher is not the part of the study.

Researcher has adopted scientific research method to reach the results or final conclusion.

Researcher intends to use statistical analysis to find results.

Types of Research:

Relational Research
 Casual Research
Descriptive Research

Relational Research:

A study that examines the connection or relation between two variables is considered as
relational research. Compared variables are generally already present in the group or
population.

Casual Research:

With the thought of scientific experimentation, research on cause and effect comes in
mind. It is fundamentally based on What causes what . It examines the effect of one or
more variables on one or more outcome variables. It also determines if one variable
causes another variable to occur or change.

Descriptive Research:

It refers to the depiction of what already exists in a group or population. It does not
measure the effect of variable, but only describes them.

Research type used in this study:

In this research, researcher intends to use causal approach of research. As earlier

mentioned in this chapter that researcher is examining two types of variables,
independent and dependent.

Media exposure is independent variable and impact of womens participation in

political activities I dependent variable.

The main hypothesis of this study is that greater the impact / exposure of media greater
the participation of women in political activities.

Nature of the Research:

Nature of the research is divided in two basic categories

Cross-Sectional Research
 Longitudinal Research

Cross-Sectional Research:

It takes place in single point in time. All tests, measures, or variables are administered to
participants on one occasion. It considers present conditions instead of looking at the
effects of a variable over a period of time (PENNYS VISSER)

Longitudinal Research:

Longitudinal Research is a study that takes place over a period of time.

Data is not once collected but repeatedly collected during the length of study.

This research study researcher intends to follow cross sectional approach of research and
examines one sample at one point of time. This method was adopted due to the matters
related to the availability of respondents.

Researcher gathered data on present condition instead of looking at effects of variables

over a period of time.

Instrument:

Data is collected through various ways, such as tests, questionnaires, interviews,

classroom observation, journals etc. These are called instruments to collect, analyze and
interpret data. Furthermore, instrument refers to the generic term that researchers use for
a measurement device such as survey, questionnaire, test etc.

In this study, researcher intends to use survey questionnaire as instrument to collect and
analyze data. In recent times, survey questionnaire has emerged as the most useful
instrument especially in quantitative studies. Researcher has developed a questionnaire in
order to get viewpoint of respondents. Furthermore, different variables can also be
studied by using survey questionnaire.

Survey Questionnaire:
In this study researcher has applied survey method to obtain data that is quantitative in
nature from large representative but widely scattered population the survey has helped the
researcher in gathering information directly from the women who watch Urdu news
channel to gain motivation for participation in political activities. The changes in the
level of participation have hence figured out through the information provided on a
quantitative scale. This research was conducted during January 2015 to October 2015.
The data is collected in the same period as well.

Population:

Wimmer and Donvirick (1993) define population as A group or a class of subjects,

variables, concepts or phenomena

In this light of above definition total population of this study comprises all female voters
aged is 18 and above having identity card and are registered voters. They all are residing
in Gujrat, Pakistan. The reason behind taking this age group is that these female are
voters and part of the electoral system. According to district election office of Gujrat is
the number of female voters is ..

The expected number of women targeted in this study was one fourth of the total voters,
which were about

It was not possible for the researcher to approach the total population therefore sampling
technique was applied.

Furthermore, the researcher chooses the population with the following characteristics.

They are voters

They are citizens of Pakistan having National Identity Card

They must be one of followings at any point of their lives

Active supporter
Campaigners
Politicians
Polling Agents
 Candidates
Voters

Sampling Method

In this research the researcher has applied sampling technique to collect the data.
Wimmer and Dominich (1993) defines, A sample is the subset of the population that is
taken to be the representative of entire population

The researcher selected Gujrat as the field of the study because it is politically a very
dynamic and vibrant city. Representation of almost all the political parties is present here
many former important public office holders and political Icons belong to Gujrat. This
district has produced. The list includes.

Chaudhary Zahoor Elahi GS Muslim League

Shujaat Hussain Former Prime Minister and interior minister of Pakistan

Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi, Former CM Punjab

Qamar Zaman Kaira, Former Information Minister and Information secretary of PPP

Ahmed Mukhtar, Former Defence and War Minister

Aitzaz Ahsan, Senator and former communication minister

Ch. Fazal Elahi, Former President of Pakistan

Samina Fakhar Paganwala, PPP

Gujrat is a newly emerged metropolitan city on the bank of river Chenab. A recently
established university, University of Gujrat has brought measureable change in the social
and political life of district Gujrat. A newly elected chairman union council Akhlas Garh
Adeel Warraich has done M.Phil from this university. This shows the interest of educated
people of Gujrat in politics.
The researcher was interested to collect the data from the large population but due to the
time and financial constraints total . Women belonging to Gujrat were
selected as sample of the study. Gujrat was divided into the tehsils

Gujrat
Kharian
Sarai Alamgir

Sample (Snowball)

Goodman L.A (1961) defines Snowball sampling as is a non-probability sampling

technique where existing study subjects recruit future subjects from among their
acquaintances.

Data Collection:

Tool of Data collection

In this research survey based questionnaire was used as tool for data collection.
Researcher hired two translations for two respondents who could not read and answer the
questions asked in questionnaire.

Pre-Testing and Reliability test:

The questionnaire was pre-tested. Pre-testing was by collecting data from 50 respondents
from the study area. Some mistakes were found in the instrument so researcher modified
it before finalizing. Cronbatchs alpha approach was used to clerk the reliability. This
method is usually used when questions are in form of lickert scale (Lickerts 1952). In a
Lickerts scale a person expresses an opinion by rating his agreement with a series of
statement (Hanif and Ahmad, 2004)

Collection of Data and Field Experiences:

In this study, efforts were made to get the female respondents of different socio-economic
background. Total sample consisted of 300 women of age 18 and above residing in
Gujrat.
Data collection was completed in one month. The language of instrument was English
and Translators were hired for respondent who could not understand the language.

Difficulties in Data Collection:

Researcher observed some difficulties in the process of data collection which are thinker
appropriate to mention.

Following have been some hurdles during the process.

Some of the respondents were non-cooperative

Some were hesitated to answer some of the question especially about their family
and social background.
Some respondent, as they were females, were hesitant to respond some questions
for some personal reasons.

Data processing:

The statistical package for the social science (SPSS21) has been used for analyzing data
MS Word and Excel were used for designing charts, tables, graphs and composing the
thesis script. Knowledge of basic computer skill is compulsory for conducting.

Data Screening

Data was properly screened before putting it into Statistical package for social sciences
(SPSS) for final analysis. It was made sure that questionnaires have been properly filled
and no mistakes were found. Researcher found nothing measurable missed.