IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/teinso/v62y2020ics0160791x19301836.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The China-Pakistan economic corridor: The Pakistani media attitudes perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Qianqian, Li
  • Yijun, Liu

Abstract

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative. How Pakistani media coverage shapes the CPEC is related to public attitudes towards the project and may even affect the success or failure of the initiative in Pakistan. This paper examines Pakistani media coverage on the CPEC by constructing and analyzing semantic networks of the news from the top three English media from 2015 to 2018. We detect the sentimental polarity of news coverage on the CPEC, focusing on the words used in the news and determining how the media frames the CPEC in Pakistan. Then, we construct semantic networks of the negative, neutral and positive documents. Network analysis is used to determine the characteristics of the different sentiment networks, which words hold significant positions, and how the negative central concepts are associated with describing the apprehension towards and obstacles related to the CPEC. The results show that most coverage exhibits a positive attitude towards the CPEC. Negative sentiment towards the CPEC is illustrated through more diverse messaging, demonstrating greater cohesiveness than the larger, less-connected positive network. The identified negative central topics are India, security, region, parties, issues, Afghanistan, Kashmir, debt, loans, situation, disputes, cost, opposition and peace, which are framed around apprehension and skepticism regarding the CPEC and the stability of the environment of its construction. In contrast, the most significant words in the positive network are progress, important, support, benefit, prosperity, enhance, improve, and boost, highlighting the potential economic returns and political guarantees. Semantic network analysis of the sentiments expressed in the Pakistani media regarding the CPEC can improve our understanding of Pakistani attitudes towards the CPEC. Our research combines quantitative and qualitative evidence to study media coverage in Pakistan, which can provide insights regarding the communications used to improve confidence in the CPEC and can also improve our understanding of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Suggested Citation

  • Qianqian, Li & Yijun, Liu, 2020. "The China-Pakistan economic corridor: The Pakistani media attitudes perspective," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:teinso:v:62:y:2020:i:c:s0160791x19301836
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101303
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X19301836
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101303?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tausch, Franziska & Zumbuehl, Maria, 2018. "Stability of risk attitudes and media coverage of economic news," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 295-310.
    2. Sangsomboon Ploywarin & Yan Song & Dian Sun, 2018. "Research on Factors Affecting Public Risk Perception of Thai High-Speed Railway Projects Based on “Belt and Road Initiative”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-13, June.
    3. Kapuściński, Grzegorz & Richards, Barry, 2016. "News framing effects on destination risk perception," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 234-244.
    4. Vines, David, 2016. "Chinese leadership of macroeconomic policymaking in a multipolar world," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 286-296.
    5. M. Goldstein & S. Morris & G. Yen, 2004. "Problems with fitting to the power-law distribution," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 41(2), pages 255-258, September.
    6. Huang, Yiping, 2016. "Understanding China's Belt & Road Initiative: Motivation, framework and assessment," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 314-321.
    7. Pereira, H.B.B. & Fadigas, I.S. & Senna, V. & Moret, M.A., 2011. "Semantic networks based on titles of scientific papers," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(6), pages 1192-1197.
    8. Zhai, Fan, 2018. "China’s belt and road initiative: A preliminary quantitative assessment," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 84-92.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Muhammad Ittefaq & Zahid Shahab Ahmed & Yadira Ixchel Martínez Pantoja, 2023. "China’s Belt and Road Initiative and soft power in Pakistan: an examination of the local English-language press," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(1), pages 1-14, March.
    2. Inam Ullah Khalil & Sehresh Hena & Usman Ghani & Raza Ullah & Inayatullah Jan & Abdul Rauf & Abdul Rehman & Azhar Abbas & Luan Jingdong, 2021. "Development and Sustainability of Rural Economy of Pakistan through Local Community Support for CPEC," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-17, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati & Yuanxin Li & Samuel Brazys & Alexander Dukalskis, 2019. "Building Bridges or Breaking Bonds? The Belt and Road Initiative and Foreign Aid Competition," Working Papers 201906, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    2. Koffi Dumor & Li Yao, 2019. "Estimating China’s Trade with Its Partner Countries within the Belt and Road Initiative Using Neural Network Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-22, March.
    3. Yang, Yiwen & Lin, Chinho, 2021. "Impact of the “Belt and Road Initiative” on machinery production networks," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    4. Mingchun Cao & Ilan Alon, 2020. "Intellectual Structure of the Belt and Road Initiative Research: A Scientometric Analysis and Suggestions for a Future Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-40, August.
    5. Hongxing Cao & Huirong Zhan & Yuan Wang & Ziyao Wei, 2021. "Sino-Bulgarian Economic Relations in the Post Pandemic World," Economic Alternatives, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria, issue 2, pages 177-196, July.
    6. Schulhof, Vera & van Vuuren, Detlef & Kirchherr, Julian, 2022. "The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): What Will it Look Like in the Future?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    7. Jing Yuan & Yajing Dong & Weijie Zhai & Zongwu Cai, 2021. "Economic Policy Uncertainty: Cross-Country Linkages and Spillover Effects on Economic Development in Some Belt and Road Countries," WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS 202110, University of Kansas, Department of Economics, revised Nov 2021.
    8. Chunjiao Yu & Ren Zhang & Lian An & Zhixing Yu, 2020. "Has China’s Belt and Road Initiative Intensified Bilateral Trade Links between China and the Involved Countries?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-19, August.
    9. Insoo Cho & Peter F. Orazem, 2021. "How endogenous risk preferences and sample selection affect analysis of firm survival," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1309-1332, April.
    10. Gillespie, Colin S., 2015. "Fitting Heavy Tailed Distributions: The poweRlaw Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 64(i02).
    11. Ongena, Steven & Savaşer, Tanseli & Şişli Ciamarra, Elif, 2022. "CEO incentives and bank risk over the business cycle," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    12. Liu, Haiyun & Islam, Mollah Aminul & Khan, Muhammad Asif & Hossain, Md Ismail & Pervaiz, Khansa, 2020. "Does financial deepening attract foreign direct investment? Fresh evidence from panel threshold analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    13. Damoah, Kaku Attah & Giovannetti, Giorgia & Marvasi, Enrico, 2022. "Do country centrality and similarity to China matter in the allocation of belt and road projects?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 660-674.
    14. Asongu, Simplice & Acha-Anyi, Paul, 2019. "Global Tourism and Waves of Terror: Perspectives from Military Expenditure," MPRA Paper 101793, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Salma Ahmed, 2023. "Development Of Asia-Pacific Countries: Does Belt And Road Initiative Make Any Difference?," Asia-Pacific Sustainable Development Journal, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), vol. 30(1), pages 217-262, May.
    16. Wang, Hao & Han, Yonghui & Fidrmuc, Jan & Wei, Dongming, 2021. "Confucius Institute, Belt and Road Initiative, and Internationalization," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 237-256.
    17. Fenner, Trevor & Levene, Mark & Loizou, George, 2010. "Predicting the long tail of book sales: Unearthing the power-law exponent," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(12), pages 2416-2421.
    18. Rezvanian, Alireza & Meybodi, Mohammad Reza, 2015. "Sampling social networks using shortest paths," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 424(C), pages 254-268.
    19. de Soyres, François & Mulabdic, Alen & Ruta, Michele, 2020. "Common transport infrastructure: A quantitative model and estimates from the Belt and Road Initiative," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    20. Yuan, Qianqian & Baležentis, Tomas & Shen, Zhiyang & Streimikiene, Dalia, 2021. "Economic and environmental performance of the belt and road countries under convex and nonconvex production technologies," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:teinso:v:62:y:2020:i:c:s0160791x19301836. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/technology-in-society .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.