Original Article

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War or peace tweets? © The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/1329878X211042432
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Shahira S Fahmy
The American University in Cairo, Egypt

Shabir Hussain
Bahria University, Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstract
This study explores the application of social media in a violent conflict and examines the role that
Twitter can play in communicative processes in light of peacebuilding practices. It bridges a gap in
communication research by conducting a war/peace framing analysis on Twitter regarding the sec-
ond deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan. Our results challenge the idealistic perspectives of peace
communication scholars, who predicted that digital platforms would lead to a strong peace framing
approach. Similar to traditional media, the tweets were dominated by war frames. Results also
showed the amount of war and peace indicators varied over time. Further, findings suggest the
narrative that ultimately failed to highlight a peace framework, was largely shaped by local events
and the power of traditional stakeholders.

Keywords
Twitter, terrorism, framing, Pakistan, peace research, content analysis

Peace Research in Peace Journalism has emerged as an influential evaluative framework to analyze
media coverage of wars and conflicts in terms of its role in conflict escalation and de-escalation.
After initial critique, the scholars of peace and conflict have refined its theoretical and methodolo-
gical orientations to develop it into a well-rounded academic approach. But researchers have pre-
dominantly focused on the traditional news media to investigate its presence or absence (i.e. Lee
and Maslog, 2005) and limited systematic academic enquiries have been conducted to explore
content in the contemporary digital media environment (i.e. Golovchenko et al., 2018; Reuter
and Kaufhold, 2018; Ron et al., 2020). Drawing on previous works, this study therefore, aims to
extend peace/war scholarship to examine whether peace/war trends observed in traditional media
continue to be noted on digital media platforms, specifically on Twitter.

Corresponding author:
Shahira S Fahmy, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, The American University in Cairo, New Cairo, Cairo
11835, Egypt.
Email: shahira.fahmy@fulbrightmail.org
2 Media International Australia 0(0)

As a digital tool, Twitter has become a key component of contemporary news media culture.
Twitter, a social media Microblog used for sending, receiving, and sharing short posts, is one of
the most popular digital media platforms. It currently ranks as one of the leading social networks
worldwide, with about 330 million monthly active users (Statistica, 2019). Meanwhile, the last
decades have witnessed consumption of traditional news media exponentially dwindle, with
more and more people getting and disseminating news through social media and online platforms.
And until now, peace communication scholars (i.e. Hackett, 2011; Lynch, 2014; Youngblood,
2016) have been optimistic about this shift because they believe the commercial orientation of tra-
ditional media and the reliance on elites as main obstacles to communicating peace. The exponents
of peace journalism believe that social media platforms would contribute to peace due to absence of
formal restrictions on information dissemination. Social media, therefore, could open up possibili-
ties for the public to engage in building peace. They argue that peacebuilding practices and social
media are complementary to each other because both are people-centered.
In general terms, Twitter is a form of public communication, where all the stakeholders includ-
ing common people, military and political elites, journalists and terrorists share information. In the
literature, during conflict the “media other than journalism had previously demonstrated their ability
to influence social change in societies around the world (Bratic, 2017, p. 148). Therefore, following
the work of Bratic (2016), Hackett (2011) and Orgeret and Tayeebwa (2016), we expand the use of
media in peacebuilding and extend the peace journalism framework to social media and public plat-
forms, like Twitter, to examine the communicative processes in light of peacebuilding practices on
social media during a terrorist attack in Pakistan. In this context, we examine the extent to which
fast-growing social media is being used to construct peace communication discourse, and therefore
making an important empirical contribution to peace communication literature.
So, why Pakistan? First, a war-ravaged country marred by an array of security, ethno-political
and religious wars (Haqqani, 2018), Pakistan has had more than one hundred thousand people
reportedly killed in conflicts (Dawn, 2015). The war against the Taliban fighters is the deadliest
in the country, where more than 80,000 people were recently killed with billions of dollars cost
to national exchequer (The Express Tribune, 2015). Second, the country is among the top 10 coun-
tries where mobile density and social media use have grown exponentially in the past five years
(Telecom indicators, 2018). Indeed, Pakistan is a good fit for this study, where Twitter has
become a popular social media platform to voice dissent against the militaristic policies in the
war against the Taliban (BBC report, 2019).
Focusing on Twitter coverage of the second deadliest terrorist attack in Pakistan, commonly
known as Mastung attack that occurred on July 13, 2018, we attempt to investigate whether and
to what extent the debates on Twitter conform to the peace-oriented framework. What are the nar-
ratives that dominate these online debates? Unlike traditional media, which are completely censored
by the military elite in Pakistan, Twitter can potentially be freely used to express and influence opi-
nions on current conflicts. In recent years, there has been a popular resistance to Pakistan’s military
operation1. Would the Twitter sphere provide a multi-perspectival platform on this conflict, as mea-
sured by the peace/war frames? And what implications does the manner in which the conflict is
framed have for social media users? In addition, by analyzing the coverage of the progression of
the attack, we further investigate whether the information available on Twitter provides alternative
frames to produce a more constructive representation of the conflict.

The Taliban conflict

The Taliban conflict is one of the deadliest conflict in the recent history of Pakistan. After 9/11, the
Taliban regime in Afghanistan was accused of harboring Al-Qaeda terrorists (Haqqani, 2005).
Fahmy and Hussain 3

Pakistan, an important neighbor of Afghanistan had close ties with the Taliban fighters and was
forced to join the US-led war on terror — an act that infuriated the Taliban fighters in Pakistan.
In retaliation, local Taliban forces started attacking the Pakistan military installations
(Musharraf, 2006; Rashid, 2008) and formed the Taliban Movement of Pakistan (See Haqqani,
2005). The Pakistan government then deployed more than 200,000 soldiers in the tribal and adja-
cent areas. However, the Pakistan military failed to control the Taliban forces and an armed conflict
began in 2004 in Pakistan.
During this conflict, Pakistan’s tribal population suffered the most (Pashteen, 2019). They were
regularly caught in crossfires between the military and the Taliban militants (Timeline on human
displacement since 2004, 2009)2. Combined with the large civilian casualty, houses were demol-
ished and businesses destroyed. The situation worsened when the successive governments in
Pakistan failed to compensate civilians, creating widespread animosity against the military that
was widely criticized for mismanaging the conflict (Pashteen, 2019; Zaidi, 2018).
In 2017, the war finally ended with the eventual defeat of the Taliban forces. Yet in the years
following, the Taliban militants succeeded to regroup and launched sporadic deadly attacks
(Yousafzai, 2018). During the national elections in 2018, there were five attacks on politicians
and military personnel in which more than 200 people died (Yousafzai, 2018). In this study, we
focus on the Mastung attack that regenerated fears of Taliban revenge and received worldwide con-
demnation. It happened in a public rally and resulted in 146 deaths and hundreds of injuries (BBC,
2019). At the time the study was conducted, this suicide blast was considered the second deadliest
attack in the continuing war on terrorism in Pakistan.
The Mastung attack occurred on July 13, 2018 in the Baluchistan province. On July 16, the Military
Chief Qamar Javed visited Quetta — the provincial headquarter of Balochistan. On the same day,
Imran Khan (currently the Prime Minister) and Shahbaz Sharif, head of the main opposition party,
also visited. Bilawal Bhutto, chairman of The Pakistan Peoples Party and the caretaker chief ministers
of Sindh and Balochistan, visited the city the next day. The leaders offered condolences and met the
families of the injured. In a rare display of unity, The Senate of Pakistan then passed a joint resolution
and called for ensuring peace in the wake of the national elections scheduled for July 25, 2018.

Media framing of conflicts

Decades of media framing research consistently point to an array of factors that shape particular
frames, such as elitist interests, journalistic norms and routines, individual schemas, political ideol-
ogy and culturally rooted interpretations and outlooks etc. (i.e. Bratic, 2008; Bryant and Miron,
2004; Entman, 2003; Fahmy and Neumann, 2011; Gamson and Modigliani, 1989; Hammond,
2007; Neumann and Fahmy, 2012; Reese, 2007). This has been particularly true in conflict report-
ing, where media framing is usually in line with policy elites. Analyzing the framing in US media of
two similar incidents, Entman (1991), for example, found that while the US media exonerated their
own country, they severely criticized the Russians for violating human rights.
Researchers have long argued that political and socio-cultural contexts determine the nature of
war reporting. During international conflicts, the media are not neutral; they support their govern-
ments positions towards war. Mitra (2016) argues that in covering distant conflicts, the media frame
events according to cultural experiences and social stereotypes. This is something that Somerville
(2017) notes in his analyses of conflicts in Africa and Eastern Europe during the 1990s. These con-
flicts were decontextualized in Western media. While focusing on the typical framing of African
conflicts, Somerville (2017) indicates the coverage ignored history and the real causes of war
and deployed fear to engage audiences emotionally.
4 Media International Australia 0(0)

There is also mounting evidence that traditional media not only decontextualize conflicts, but
promote patriotism and nationalism (Allan and Zelizer, 2004; Kamilpour and Snow, 2004;
Nohrstedt and Ottosen, 2015; Thussu and Freedman, 2003). The literature demonstrates the
media promote the jingoistic policies of their countries out of patriotism and a sense of duty to
their nation (Carruthers, 2011; Hussain and Lynch, 2018; Knightly, 2002; Wolfsfeld, 2004).
Studying the Iraq war coverage in US media, for example, revealed that in reporting the Abu
Ghraib torture, the prisoners’ abuse was treated as an individual act, separated from the large-scale
prevalence of this problem and the illegality of the occupation (Bennett et al, 2006). Concurrently,
the UK media were caught up in patriotism for the Iraqi invasion, while ignoring the popular dissent
to the war (Murray et al., 2008).
Unlike the critical nature of framing studies of conflict in traditional news outlets, conflict studies
focusing on social media have been mainly strategic in nature — analyzing how enemy groups use
social media for war purposes and helping governments combat enemy strategy (i.e. Archetti, 2015;
Fahmy, 2020; Gabel et al., 2020; Weimann, 2016). These studies specifically, focused on analyzing
the social media campaign of the Islamic State group. Alfifi and Averlee (2017), for example, exam-
ined how the group spread online propaganda on Twitter. Such efforts were expanded in a
UNESCO report that outlined how terrorism organizations use social media platforms. It warned
about the dangers of the use of social media by terrorist groups (Alava et al., 2017). Overall
then, social media platforms appear to have been exploited by hate groups to spread messages of
violence and intolerance, rather than to promote hope and reconciliation.
Additional literature also illustrates how the emergence of online and social media have affected
the realm of our media environment, specifically regarding conflict. Vittoria and Bossio (2015)
recently investigated the extent to which social media can mitigate the effects of military and gov-
ernment restriction of information. Their research highlighted the ambiguity between social media
and war coverage and advocated for in depth investigations of the relationship between media prac-
tices and societal changes.

Theoretical framework: The peace/War framing approach

Debates over the role of communication in response to conflict as well as the recent developments
in violence prevention, have included media aside from journalism (Bratic, 2016; Orgeret and
Tayeebwa, 2016). In light of the rapidly evolving media technologies, multiple non-journalistic
media platforms, including social media, are considered complementary and alternative tools
that adopt similar journalistic principles and theoretical frameworks (See Bratic, 2017). One of
these main theoretical frameworks within journalism as a field of scholarly research, has been
Peace Journalism.
In the peace-oriented initiative in the field of communication that has been mostly defined with
the structures established in Peace Research (See Lynch (2017), Johan Galtung (1986) presented
the Peace Journalism (PJ) concept. In his war/peace journalism framework, he established a
deficit analysis of mainstream news about conflicts — problematizing it as ‘war journalism’ that
is likely to provide unwitting support for social violence through the routine application of journal-
istic conventions. Galtung (1998), advocated a shift to the peace journalism approach, calling for a
more constructive and professional attitude towards conflict reporting.
This branch of communication research attracted interest and participation from scholars of both
Journalism Studies and Communication, who investigated the dynamics of conflict and peace (See
Lynch, 2017). And in recent years, conflict reporting studies focusing on PJ have become more
common (i.e. Hussain, 2020; Lee, 2010; Mitra, 2016; Ross, 2006). These studies showed that tradi-
tional media intensify conflicts for strategic and commercial purposes (Bratic, 2008; Shinar, 2007).
Fahmy and Hussain 5

In studying PJ, researchers defined war/peace framing as the interpretive structure that “sets spe-
cific events with a comprehensive context.” (Lee and Maslog, 2005, p. 315). They operationalized
war and peace framing indicators to examine the nature of conflict reporting. These studies revealed
the dominance of war coverage in traditional media that coincide with ideology and government
policy. Perez (2006) for example, analyzed the media coverage of the invasion of Iraq in three
US leading newspapers and found the dominance of the war-oriented approach that was in line
with the official US policy. Similarly, Izadi (2009) looked at the coverage of Iran in US media
and revealed the dominance of war reporting and the dehumanization of Iran as inferior and bar-
baric, that also conformed with the US foreign policy. In the context of the Taliban conflict in
Pakistan, a number of empirical studies analyzed the coverage using the peace/war framework.
These studies found the Pakistani media reported the conflict from a nationalistic perspective;
the Pakistan military was openly supported and the Taliban fighters demonized (Hussain, 2020;
Hussain and Lynch, 2018; Hussain and Siraj, 2019).
Overall, the peace/war framing scholarship suggests conflict reporting tends to be escalatory and
inclined to deploy us versus them categories (Lynch, 2014; Youngblood, 2016). During high inten-
sity conflicts, the media do not remain free but openly support the elitist and nationalistic perspec-
tive against the enemy (Carruthers, 2011; Knightly, 2002; Thussu and Freedman, 2003). In
traditional media, an array of factors influence war coverage, such as, (a) news values that
include immediacy, drama, simplicity and ethnocentrism (b) the level of elite consensus behind
the process and (c) the number and severity of crises that occur during the process and the level
of media sensationalism (Wolfsfeld, 2004). These factors usually result in superficial reporting
instead of covering the complexities of the process.
While we understand the way traditional media frame conflicts, there is still much we do not
comprehend about peace-oriented patterns on digital platforms. The use of information communi-
cation technology in peacebuilding has been relatively unexplored and mostly anecdotal
(Comninos, 2013). We are undergoing a communication revolution and as Bratic (2016) explains
in recent years “the discourse in the field has shifted away from the traditional media and formal
peacebuilding practice….Academic research and policy moved towards examining new ways tech-
nology can enhance democratization and social activism” (p. 1). These recent developments natu-
rally became a central issue and the peace research community raised the question of whether digital
media may encourage political violence or lead to peaceful solutions.
Few communication scholars suggested that the use of new media technologies and socially
responsible interactive news narratives may promote critical appraisal of war policies and
enhance peace building efforts (Aslam, 2016; Best et al., 2011; Hyde-Clarkei, 2014). Comninos
(2013) explained the potential of social media in empowering citizens and promoting social trans-
formation and a culture of peacebuilding. Other more optimistic journalism scholars (i.e. Lynch and
Galtung, 2010) pinned hope on social media to produce more constructive representation of con-
flicts due to the relative absence of elitist control. However, initial empirical findings suggest
digital platforms have been an excellent tool for promoting conflict but a poor one for bringing
peace. Social media content may include hate speech, propaganda, or mere misinformation that
may be harmful to peace (See Comninos, 2013). Ron and colleagues (2020) for example, qualita-
tively analyzed the Facebook page of the Israeli grassroots movement Women Wage Peace (WWP)
and while they found attempts to mobilize peace, they also reported blatant expressions of hostility
and hatred. Regarding Twitter, the literature suggests the platform has been used for computational
propaganda (Woolley and Howard, 2016). Dominant Twitter accounts often belong to traditional
media and politicians, so one cannot assume that digital platforms represent a liberal independent
media sphere (Golovchenko et al., 2018). Some preliminary work (though not focusing specifically
on war and peace framing indicators), explored how social media can facilitate peace building by
6 Media International Australia 0(0)

examining how citizens used Twitter during a contentious 2014 parade dispute in Belfast Findings
showed that while the platform empowered citizens to correct rumors and disinformation, it appears
to have failed in fostering cross-community consensus on how to resolve the dispute and promote
peace (Reilly, 2016).

Hypothesis and research questions

Preliminary findings suggest that Twitter has been used as a tool for promoting conflict and dissem-
ination of misinformation and propaganda (Comninos, 2013; Woolley and Howard, 2016).
Therefore, our study begins by focusing on whether the dominance of the war framing trend
observed in traditional media extends to the contemporary digital media environment, specifically
on the Twitter platform.

H1: The tweets of the Mastung attack reflected significantly more war frames as compared to peace frames
and neutral frames.

Previous scholars examined the salient peace/war indicators to further understand the peace/war
frames during conflicts. Based on Galtung’s (1986) classification of war and peace and subsequent
attempts to understand this concept from a normative (Lynch and Galtung, 2010; McGoldrick and
Lynch, 2000) and an empirical perspective (Lee and Maslog, 2005), we examined the frequency of
peace/war indicators of the terrorist attack, as portrayed by tweets.

RQ1: In the tweets of the Mastung terrorist attack, what was the frequency of salient indicators for peace/
war frames?

Past literature suggests that a peace-oriented frame continues to communicate the aftermath of a
conflict, whereas typically a war-oriented frame stops the communication once the conflict has
ended (i.e. Fahmy and Neumann, 2011). Reese (2007) explains that frames are “organizing princi-
ples that are socially shared and persistent over time, that work symbolically to meaningfully struc-
ture the social world” (p. 150). Bläsi (2009) and Youngblood (2016) argue that it is difficult to
practice peace journalism when a conflict is at its peak because journalists can be easily deterred
by nationalistic forces. On the other hand, they maintain that when things calm down, chances
for peace journalism improve. For that reason, the week-long duration for this study was important
to capture the overall proportion of war and peace indicators on twitter. Therefore, our last research
question attempted to examine the following:

RQ2: In the Tweets of the Mastung attack, to what extent did salient indicators for peace/war frames vary
over time?

Method
Data collection
To investigate the peace/war framing patterns on Twitter, we engaged in a systematic analysis of
tweets covering the deadly attack in the Mastung district in Pakistan that occurred on July 13,
2018. We collected all of the tweets that contained the #mastungblast hashtag spanning one
week, from July 13, 2018 till July 19, 2018. The collection process began the day of the attack
Fahmy and Hussain 7

Figure 1. Total number of #mastungblast tweets and retweets from July 13, 2018 to July 19, 2018 (N
36,107).

(on July 13) and continued six days after the attack to allow for a trend analysis (See Fahmy and
Ibrahim, 2021). Only English language tweets were examined because tweets in other languages
were scarce. Also, using only English-language tweets allowed us to standardize the coding
process.
For the first step, we employed a bespoke Twitter analysis tool, Mecodify (See Al-Saqaf, 2016),
which allowed us to use a Web search mechanism to retrospectively capture 36,107 tweets with the
mastungblast hashtag, including retweets. Because our study focused on textual information, we
excluded tweets that contained visual content.3
The tweets were then sorted by the number of tweets (from most to less retweeted). To maximize
external validity and ensure a good representation of our tweet population — while being consistent
with procedures followed in previous research — we identified the top 1000 most retweeted tweets
to include in our sample (See Clark and Ferguson, 2011; Kim et al., 2018). This process was import-
ant to include the viral tweets that carry more impact and set the agenda for the Twitterati (Hansen
et al., 2011). So, from July 13 till July 17 the top 1000 tweets for each day were included. However,
for the next consecutive two days (July 18–19), when the number tweets significantly decreased
(See Figure 1), all of the tweets were included (424 and 262 tweets respectively). The sample of
5686 tweets were then, downloaded locally as comma-separated value (CSV) text files for
further processing using the desktop spreadsheet application MS Excel.

Twitter profiles
A recent study (Golovchenko et al., 2018) that focused on Twitter content during the conflict
between Russia and Ukraine, revealed Twitter profiles included citizens, combined with state insti-
tutions, public officials and politicians accounts. In the case here, the scale of the military and poli-
tical engagements in relation to the leading media and journalists, was substantial. Both the military
(25%) and political establishments (41%) combined provided more than half of the Twitter profiles
as opposed to 13 percent that were affiliated with the news media and news professionals. Other
profiles made of trolls and bots4, as well as profiles no longer available on the platform, were
8 Media International Australia 0(0)

about one-sixth (17%). Finally, the other category, which consisted of citizens, showbiz personal-
ities, civil society and international organizations, provided 4 percent of the total profiles analyzed.

Coding
Guided by past PJ literature (e.g. Lee and Maslog, 2005; Maslog et al., 2006), we selected specific
war and peace framing criteria and operational definitions to analyze the coverage. Overall, a total
of 5686 textual-tweets covering the Mastung blast were manually analyzed, with the unit of analysis
being a single tweet. Each tweet was coded according to the following categories.

Date. With this item, we tracked the evolution of the Mastung attack on Twitter, with the start date
being July 13, 2018 till the end date being July 19, 2018.

War and peace frames. All 13 indicators for war frames and 13 indicators peace frames developed
by Lee and Maslog (2005) were used in this study. These indicators are based on two broad themes
—approach and language.

War frame indicators. The approach-based categorization for war frames included the follow-
ing indicators: Tweets that were of reactive nature (i.e. protests, violence, lack of facilities at hos-
pitals and the political tension that ensued the Mastung blast); tweets focusing on the visible effects
of war (including casualties and injuries in the wake of the Mastung blast); elite-oriented (i.e. tweets
that referred to the political and military elites as source of information — the deceased politician
Siraj Raisani was celebrated as national hero while the common victims were ignored); differences
(i.e. tweets that stressed on the ideological differences between the Taliban and Pakistan); focusing
on the here and now scenario (tweets that covered only the most urgent and breaking news aspects
of the Mastung blast with very little background and contextual information about the Taliban con-
flict); dichotomizing of good guys versus bad guys (i.e. referring to Pakistan security forces as the
good guys and the Taliban and other insurgent groups as the bad guys); partisan (openly biased
against one party — Pakistan government or the Taliban fighters); two-party oriented (the conflict
is about just two parties — Taliban fighters and the Pakistan military and ignoring the rest of the
stakeholders, like the common people, peacemakers etc.); winning orientation (there is just one
goal — to win, Pakistan forces or the Taliban fighters have to win this conflict to bring it to the
logical end) and lack of continuity of reports (tweets that are related to the nature of conflict
recedes and are overtaken by tweets focusing on political wrangling and scoring points).
The language-based categorization for war frames included three indicators: the use of victimiz-
ing language (including expressions and phrases like devastated, defenseless, pathetic, with a focus
on their violence and our suffering); the use of demonizing language (i.e. terrorist, extremist, fun-
damentalist, brutal); and the use of emotive words (i.e. massacre, lynching, terrorist attack).

Peace frame indicators. The approach-based categorization for peace frames included the fol-
lowing indicators: Tweets that were of proactive nature (i.e. anticipated issues and problems before
they occurred — mob protests, clashes with people, road blocks, lack of facilities at hospitals,
ambulances); reports on the invisible effects of violence (emotional trauma suffered by the
people, damage to society and culture — for example, reports of increased animosity towards
Punjab and the federation); people-oriented (a focus on civilians and common people as primary
actors and sources of information); agreement-oriented (i.e. providing information on the areas
of agreement between stakeholders that might lead to a solution to the conflict); reports on the
causes and consequences of the violence (i.e. providing historical background and contextual
Fahmy and Hussain 9

information about the Taliban conflict and political system in Baluchistan); avoiding dichotomiza-
tion of good guys versus bad guys (avoiding binaries like victims and villains); Nonpartisan (not
biased towards or against one particular side in a conflict); Multiparty orientation (giving voice
to many parties involved in conflict like the common people, peacemakers, NGOs workers, and
the nationalists); Win-win orientation (providing solution-oriented alternatives by exploring all
avenues) and continuity of reports in the aftermath of violence (how the people are coping with
injuries, families whose dear-ones have been killed in the violence, those recuperating at hospital
and their needs, promises by politicians and how these are fulfilled).
The language-based categorization for peace frames included the following three indicators:
avoiding the use of victimizing language (i.e. what has been done and could be done by people,
and how people are coping with the violent Mastung attack); using objective and moderate lan-
guage (using more precise descriptions, avoiding the use of demonizing language) and avoiding
the use of emotive language (i.e. a tweet that does not exaggerate the gravity of situation).
Further, based on previous research (Lee and Maslog, 2005), one cumulative index for peace
frames and one cumulative index for war frames were computed. In addition, we further classified
the tweets as a war tweet, a peace tweet or a neutral tweet based on the above categorizations.
Borrowing from Lee and Maslog (2005), we coded 1 for each time an indicator was found.
When the total number of war indicators exceeded the total number of peace indicators, the
tweet was coded as a war tweet. When the total number peace indicator exceeded the total
number of war indicators, the tweet was coded as a peace tweet. When the numbers recorded
were equal, the tweet was coded as neutral.
In terms of the coding process, one co-author from Pakistan coded all of the 5686 tweets. As a
check of reliability, a second person coded approximately 10% of the tweets (690 tweets). For all
variables, the rate of agreement was 90.3%, based on Holsti’s formula.5

Results
Out of the 5686 tweets analyzed, 3156 tweets (55.5%) were framed as war tweets, compared to
1593 tweets (28%) framed as peace tweets, and 937 tweets (16.5%) that were neutral. The follow-
ing are representative tweets of escalatory nature: “Raisani martyred in #MastungBlast Number of
causalities goes up to 20. Mastung has been a hot-bed for #Daesh & Taliban”; “Occupied
Baluchistan leader Siraj who insulted INDIAN (spies) are in hell now. Pro Pakistan party leader
#SirajRaisani has died in the blast by fighters”; “We Will Teach India a Lesson it Will Never
Forget! We are ready to take revenge”. Examples of de-escalatory nature included: “Death toll
of Mastung blast has risen to 128 now. May Allah give Patience to their families”;“Why weren’t
such events prevented before occurring? The nation needs soul searching to get into the real
causes”. Examples of neutral tweets included: “The Govt is concerned over this brutal terrorist
attack. We will do all to help the families and ensure security of common people”. “The injured
are not getting sufficient services at hospitals. Baloch are children of lesser God”.
To test whether there were significantly more war frames as compared to peace frames and
neutral frames on Twitter (hypothesis one), results of a chi-square test, showed that in our
sample the war tweets were more dominant than peace tweets or neutral tweets, χ2 (2, N =
3156) = 4749, p < .001. In other words, our results echoed previous findings that focused on tradi-
tional media and the presence of mainstream practices based on violence (i.e. Lee and Maslog,
2005). Our findings here illustrate the dominance of war frames in the overall tweets related to
the Mastung attack. H1 is, therefore, supported.
RQ1 explored the frequency of salient indicators for war frames and peace frames. As shown in
Table 1, there were 7127 war indicators and 5027 peace indicators. Overall in our sample, the four
10 Media International Australia 0(0)

most salient indicators of war frame were elite-orientation (16.7%), here and now centered (15.2%),
visible effects (14.5%) and two-party orientation (12.3%)6. As outlined before, these indicators
reflect a strong war-oriented approach (i.e. Lynch, 2008). The findings here, therefore, are consist-
ent with previous peace/war framing scholarship. Previous research that focused on traditional
media highlighted the preponderance of these four war frame indicators (i.e. Lee, 2010; Ross,
2006). With regard to the peace frame indicators, the four most salient indicators of peace frame
were invisible effects (10.7%), multi-party orientation (9%), people-oriented (7.6%) and non-
victimizing language (7.2%)7. Except for the invisible effects category, the rest of the top three
peace indicators were of mild nature that did not strongly advocate for peace. These indicators
rather signified an ethical and a normal approach to covering of conflicts. Other researchers who
focused on traditional media, have also found preponderance of similar passive indicators in the
overall approach of peace-oriented coverage (Lynch, 2014).
RQ2 explored the extent to which salient peace/war indicators varied over time. As stated earlier,
war reporting takes place when the coverage stops once the conflict is over whereas peace reporting
takes place when the coverage stays on to cover the aftermath of war (i.e. Fahmy and Neumann,
2011). The timeline shown in Figure 2 illustrates that the number of war indicators of the
Mastung attack varied over time. It also demonstrates that war indicators dropped significantly
towards the end. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed statistically significant effects, F(6,
5679) = 34.69, p < .001. The war indicators started on a high note as the majority of tweets were
about the incident and contained information about the people killed, injured and damages to infra-
structure. There were condemnations and demonizing language for the Taliban — who were
blamed for this attack. But then the war frame nosedived significantly and more and more
tweets were about human sufferings, perspective of common people and criticism in military for
failing to secure the lives of people and maintaining law and order in the wake of elections.
Specifically, the reduced number of war indicators were noted towards the end of week.
Similarly, as shown in Figure 3, the number of peace indicators of the Mastung attack also varied
over the one-week period. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed statistically significant effects,

Table 1. Frequency and percentages of war and peace frames used in tweets of the Mastung terrorist attack
(N = 5686).

TWEETS TWEETS

War frames present Peace frames present

Elite-orientation 947 (16.7%) Invisible effects 608 (10.7%)
Here and now 866 (15.2%) Multiparty orientation 510 (9.0%)
Visible effects 826 (14.5%) People-oriented 432 (7.6%)
Two-party orientation 699 (12.3%) Not victimizing 410 (7.2%)
Zero-sum orientation 550 (9.7%) Causes & consequences 395 (6.9%)
Victimizing 512 (9.0%) Focus on agreement 377 (6.6%)
Focus on differences 449 (7.9%) Proactive 354 (6.2%)
Emotive 404 (7.1%) Nonpartisan 351 (6.2%)
Partisan 401 (7.1%) Not demonizing 337 (5.9%)
Reactive 379 (6.7%) Objective & moderate 325 (5.7%)
Lack of continuity 371 (6.5%) Continuity 317 (5.6%)
Demonizing 362 (6.4%) Not dichotomizing 311 (5.5%)
Dichotomizing 361 (6.3%) Win-win orientation 300 (5.3%)

TOTAL WAR INDICATORS 7127 TOTAL PEACE INDICATORS 5027

Fahmy and Hussain 11

Figure 2. Timeline illustrating mean of war indicators in tweets of the Mastung terrorist attack over time
(N 5686). ∗ Depicting war frames over time showed statistical significance, F(6, 5679) = 34.69, p < .001.

F(6, 5679) = 64.90, p < .001. Surprisingly, the peace frame started on a high note, as there were
many tweets that expressed concern over the loss of lives and sympathized with the sufferers.
In the next two days, however, there was a sharp decline in the peace indicators. Overall,
the valence of peace frames improved with the passage of time, despite some fluctuation in the
initial days of the attack. Specifically, toward the end of the week, much of the discourse on
Twitter shifted to the election process.

Figure 3. Timeline illustrating mean of peace indicators in tweets of the Mastung terrorist attack over time
(N 5686).∗ Depicting peace frames over time showed statistical significance, F(6, 5679) = 64.90, p < .001.
12 Media International Australia 0(0)

Discussion
Our study explored the application of digital media in violent conflict and examined the role that
Twitter can play in communicative processes in light of peacebuilding. It provided a reality
check for those who predicted that digital platforms would enhance the practice of peace journal-
ism. Focusing on the synergy between peacebuilding and new technologies, we investigated
whether or not the advent of the digital platforms has improved the simplistic trends observed in
traditional media. Historically, news professionals and news organizations controlled the represen-
tation of conflicts in the news. However, with more than 300 million active Twitter users worldwide
(Statistica, 2019), Twitter has allowed users to freely send, receive, and share information. By ana-
lyzing tweets of a major terrorist attack, findings of this study is an initial attempt to identify peace-
oriented patterns in social media in order to encourage further academic research on this topic.
Our results confirmed what was previously discovered about traditional media. Our examination
of 5686 tweets on the Mastung attack revealed a significantly higher proportion of war tweets than
peace tweets and neutral tweets. This finding was not surprising and is in-line with current research
that suggests Twitter has been a platform for promoting conflict and propaganda (Comninos, 2013;
Reilly, 2016; Woolley and Howard, 2016). We found that similar to traditional news media, Twitter
is likely to make an excellent tool for waging war but a poor one for bringing peace. These findings
here, then, are consistent with the large body of literature on traditional media that found war cover-
age is the norm and peace coverage is the exception (i.e. Fahmy and Eakin, 2014; Izadi, 2009; Lee
and Maslog, 2005; Perez, 2006), including conflict coverage in the Pakistani context (Hussain &
Siraj, 2019; Hussain and Lynch, 2018). These results challenge the idealistic perspectives of
peace communication scholars (i.e. Hackett, 2011; Lynch, 2014; Youngblood, 2016), who pre-
dicted that social media would result in the adoption of a stronger peace framing approach. For,
if the main players on social media are going to be the same as in the mainstream media, as our
study clearly shows, then how can the social media content be any different? Throw in the local
context and invested interests of the parties involved — the second important factor identified in
this study — and the social media begin to look like an extended version of the traditional
media. And while we are cautious to generalize the findings of this conflict in Pakistan to conflicts
in other countries, we believe that in conflict-affected regions suffering from restrictions on infor-
mation flow and free speech, the results observed here may not entirely differ.
A close examination of the 7127 war indicators identified in our dataset, suggests an emphasis on
elite-oriented and the visible effects of the Mastung attack emerge as the two key indicators that are
consdired to be represnting active war frame (Lee, 2010; Lynch, 2008). In the context of the current
study, these indicators highlighted the nature of blast, the death toll, and promoted the perspective
of elites — including the military general, the government and the political elites. Further, while
there were promising signs in the use of peace indicators on Twitter as shown in Table 1 —
based on a frequency count of 5027 peace indicators — our analysis showed the two main indica-
tors, such as use of non-victimizing language and people-oriented coverage are not exclusive to the
peace-oriented reporting (Bratic, 2008; Mitra, 2016; Ross, 2006; Shinar, 2007). These results
suggest that these peace indicators on Twitter do not constitute an open advocacy for peace, but
rather these indicators stem from the overall reaction to what was going on with the Mastung attack.
Our second research question centered upon the coverage of the progression of the attack. As
shown in Figure 1, the highest levels of Twitter activity occurred early on. As expected, the war
indicators nosedived with the passage of time (Figure 2). There was some recovery on days four
and five, but it was followed by a sharp decrease towards the end of the week. This happened
because initially there was anger and call for use of force against the Taliban fighters. With the
passage of time, the focus shifted to the victims and the need for better policies to stop similar
Fahmy and Hussain 13

future attacks. Peacemakers and Baloch nationalists then engaged on Twitter and hence, the warring
position softened. However, on the fourth and fifth days — as mentioned earlier — military officials
visited the Mastung district and the provincial headquarter of Quetta, escalating the coverage.
The army chief and the high echelon met the injured at hospitals and issued strong
statements against the Taliban by the fourth day. The Twitterati largely covered these events
and therefore, there was a slight increase in war indicators. This war frame tempo was
maintained on day five, when the leading politicians from the mainstream political parties
visited the region. During the military officials’ visit, Mr Khan talked to a rally and met with the
members of the deceased and promised to bring peace and harmony to the region if elected as
prime minister. His visit was highly publicized in the social media sphere, including Twitter by
the provincial government, the army and his own media team. Mr Khan also visited the military
headquarters, which earned him a lot of coverage due to his meeting with the powerful military
brass. Leaders of the other mainstream political parties also visited the region and strongly criticized
the incumbent government and the military to some extent for failing to provide security for the
people. These anti-establishment parties took advantage of this failure and accused the military
for delaying the elections and exposing opponents to threats. In such a scenario, the terrorism inci-
dent that killed 146 people moved to the background and the politics behind the incident became
more dominant and hence, the political bickering became the dominant theme. In the last two days,
interest in the incident suddenly came to a halt, due to the forthcoming upcoming general elections.
This lack of interest resulted in a decrease of war indicators, overall. So, by the sixth and seventh
days, the war indicators were replaced by the peace indicators that highlighted a broader picture of
this conflict.
Unlike the war indicators, the trajectory of the peace indicators showed more fluctuations in the
seven days period (Figure 3). The first day produced a proportionally large number of peace indi-
cators that discussed the attack, loss of lives and the traumatic situation in the aftermath. By the
second day, there was a decrease in the proportion of peace indicators when the tweets focused
on the ‘martyrdom’ of a top Pakistani politician killed in the attack as well as pointing fingers at
India and Afghanistan for helping the Taliban orchestrate the terrorist attack. The visits by the mili-
tary chief and politicians on the fourth and fifths days highlighted issues of the common people, the
need for amenities at hospitals and compensations for families of the deceased and hence, the peace
indicators gained momentum. One potential explanation for this momentum, could be the scale of
the military and political engagements that was highly represented in the tweets, in addition to the
sizeable portion of trolls and bots, that might have helped highlight their efforts. However, it is note-
worthy that this increase in peace indicators were of passive nature as compared to the active war
indicators. These indicators were related to structural issues and the invisible effects of the attacks.
In the last two days, the focus shifted to election-related issues. Tweets on whether to postpone the
elections and issues related to the security of candidates and voters, by and large, dominated the
discourse on Twitter.
Clearly, the trajectory of war and peace indicators fluctuated and did not follow smooth tractions.
These fluctuations were mainly determined by the local context of the conflict and the power of
stakeholders that set the trends for the Twitterati. In Pakistan, the key national players include
the Pakistan Army, the provincial government in Baluchistan province and the three mainstream
political parties8 — including the now the ruling party Pakistan Tehreek Insaf, Pakistan Muslim
League Nawaz and Pakistan People’s Party. These key players likely influenced the coverage
due to their Twitter activity and their special dedicated social media teams (See Abbasi, 2018).
Although analyzing their specific accounts and their social media magament techniques was not
the primary goal in this research, their presence on Twitter suggests they may have influenced
the digital narrative.9
14 Media International Australia 0(0)

Overall, the war indicators showed more visible downslide with the passage of time as compared
to the peace indicators that showed more fluctuations. The major issue with the peace tweets ana-
lyzed was the language problem. Though these tweets would generally indicate peace, as men-
tioned earlier, the mild language and the demonization aspect vitiated their potential to be
applied for peace promotion. In fact, incivilty and online profanity are key problems in digital plat-
forms (Cavazza and Guidetti, 2014).
That a significant number of tweets were framed as war is noteworthy. However, the main con-
tribution of this study does not so much lie in the identification of peace and war frames of this
specific Twitter ecosphere, but in revealing the impact of the local context in framing conflict on
Twitter. Due to the nature of the Twitter as a public communication platform, the framing was
largely shaped by local events following the attack. These events were then intensified by the influ-
ence of the powerful military and the political elites in Pakistan — as suggested by the current lit-
erature that dominant social media accounts often belong to traditional stakeholders (See
Golovchenko et al., 2018). Our results therefore suggest that the local context is a key element
in the dynamics of framing on Twitter during conflict. In the case here, the identified peace/war
pattern represented the nature of the events per se and the power of the traditional elites. In
other words, we argue that during conflict, what shapes framing on Twitter are additional offline
developments; a finding that suggests the coverage — much like traditional media — is likely influ-
enced by an array of external factors that ultimately fails to highlight a peace-oriented framework
(See Wolfsfeld, 2004). Our results, therefore, may not offer much encouragement to peace commu-
nication scholars that hoped that social media would undoubtedly produce a more constructive
representation of conflicts. Yet in the global context, a word of caution must come: one incident
cannot be a basis to make a general statement. There are many recent instances in which Twitter
played a significant role in unifying people and mobilizing world support against aggression —
such as when Israeli forces attacked Palestinian civilians during Ramadhan prayers in Al-Aqsa
Mosque in 2021; the overwhelming viral unity and solidarity with Muslims after the New
Zealand Mosque shootings in 2019; the racist violence and police brutality against Black people
in the United States in 2020 and the #MeToo global movement against sexual violence that
debuted on Twitter.

Conclusion
This study has both practical and theoretical implications. It captured the role of Twitter in con-
structing peace/war responses and policymakers may use results of this study to formulate concrete
proposals to promote peace. Further, as stated earlier, few communication scholars have theorized
the framing of conflicts that circulate on social media platforms, specifically using peace/war
framing indicators. Understanding the relationship between social media and communicating
peace is critical. It is our hope that this research will encourage discussions, and perhaps mobilize
efforts that may contribute toward improving digital peacebuilding practices in the future.
Peace communication research may build on the findings of this study, as well as address its lim-
itations. While this study’s findings may have wider implications than identifying peace-oriented
framing patterns on Twitter, the exact effect of these tweets on behavioral change will remain
unknown. Further, the reader should bear in mind that our study is based on an empirical analysis
of viral Twitter content and a comprehensive analysis of external factors influencing the reporting is
beyond the scope of this study. Future research should examine the contextual background and the
systematic theorization of the corporate, political and military power dynamics that shape the peace/
war narratives on social media. Future research should also focus on qualitative and mixed methods
Fahmy and Hussain 15

to analyze Twitter coverage of conflicts for more in-depth analyses. Furthermore, it would be inter-
esting to correlate the contributors on social media with the war and peace journalism attributes to
determine which actor is involved in what form of journalism.
In conclusion, this study is one of the first attempts to analyze the war and peace potential of
Twitter during a deadly violent attack in the protracted Taliban conflict in Pakistan. While in
other studies, especially in non-violent socio-political conflicts, social media have been very
useful in promoting alternative perspectives, in a security conflict like the Taliban, which has
been lingering for almost two decades, the results are not encouraging. In a broader perspective,
this study reinforces two things: media platforms in themselves are neither good nor bad; their
value lies in how they are used and to what end. Ultimately it is the individuals and their
choices that make the difference. And therein the hope lies.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publi-
cation of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD
Shahira S Fahmy https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7720-9318

Notes
1. For example, The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement—a social movement for human rights — deeply resents the
military policy of use of force and are actively engaging in debates on Twitter and Facebook to counter the
official and mainstream perspective (See Sattar, 2018; Haqqani, 2018; Hussain & Lynch, 2018).
2. The military heavily used aerial bombing and because of poor civilian evacuation strategies, there were
fears of more casualties than those reported by the Pakistan government (See BBC report, 2019).
3. Analyzing the isual tweets require a different set of evaluative criteria than the textual approach (See Fahmy
& Neumann, 2011). Hence, the visual tweets were examined in a separate follow-up visual communication
study.
4. A bot was identified when the Twitter account was created during or after July 2018 and had fewer than six
followers.
5. For date and medium of tweets, agreements were 100%. For war and peace frames reliability estimates for
each category were calculated using Scott’s Pi (see Scott, 1955). Specifically, for war journalism frames the
rates of agreement were: .91 for Reactivity; .96 for Visibility of conflict; .90 for Elite orientation; .88 for
Differences; .84 for Focus on here and now; .91 for Good and bad dichotomy; .81 for Partisan; .86 for
Two-party oriented; .85 for Winning orientation; .82 for Lack of continuity; .96 for Victimizing language;
.97 for Demonizing language; and .93 for Emotive language. For peace journalism frames the rates of
agreement were: .87 for Proactivity; .92 for Invisible Effects; .90 for People-oriented; .87 for Agreement
Oriented; .93 for Reports on causes; .88 for Not dichotomizing; .85 for Nonpartisan; .94 for Multiparty
orientation; .88 for Win-win orientation; .93 for Non-victimizing language; .83 for Non- demonizing lan-
guage; and .85 for Objective and moderate language.
6. Tweets with these war indicators included: “Strongly condemn the coward terrorist attack on innocent
people, hell to terrorists”; “Its not a coincidence that every time a traitor like Nawaz is about to get arrested,
terrorist attacks start emerging”.
7. Tweets with these peace indicators included: “Attack on a political rally in Mastung. Please rush to hospitals
to donate blood and save lives. Condolences with bereaved families”; “On this day of mourning, all the
political parties are one. We stand united to comfort the bereaved families”; “ The authorities should
16 Media International Australia 0(0)

immediately provide compensation to the sufferers. Hospitals should give traumatic and psychological aid
as well”.
8. The Pakistan Army has the largest social media team employing over one thousand interns. These interns
manage thousands of fake accounts and successfully produce news trends (Jahangir, 2019). Similarly, the
mainstream political parties have dedicated social media teams employing hundreds of trolls to promote
their policy agendas (Abbasi, 2018).
9. For exmaple, when we explored Twitter accounts of three main political and military figures (Tehreek Insaf
Imran Khan the current prime minister; Major General Asif Ghafoor and Muslim Muslim League Mariam
Nawz Sharif) and looked at the first 500 Twitter accounts that retweeted their tweets, we found 62 percent of
these accounts were bots, trolls or discarded accounts that likely helped boost specific messages (See
Neyazi, 2020).

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