Minority Voice in Media: A Study of Self-Esteem and Alienation in the Christian Community in Pakistan

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to examine the effect of invisibility of Christian Community on mainstream television channels on self-esteem of the Christian Community. For the mainstream media in Pakistan, the Christian community is an undervalued and unimportant group. They hardly receive any attention except little coverage at the time of Christmas or for blasphemy incidents. In this study, the survey method was employed. A convenient sample of 200 members of the Christian community were taken from Lahore. The questionnaire measured the sense of alienation and low self-esteem amongst minorities through 5 item Likert type survey Items. This is a novel study as most studies on minorities done previously deal with majority’s negative perception of minorities due to biased coverage of minorities by media. But this study deals with minority’s self-perception as a result of marginalization by media. The findings suggest that when media do not speak up for minorities as they are persecuted and falsely accused in false blasphemy cases, they feel isolated and abandoned. And there is virtually no cultural representation of minorities on the mainstream television channels.