Political agenda and public agenda on the issue of new province a case study of southern Punjab-Pakistan

This research study is intended to measure the understanding and opinion of public regarding the issue of proposed new province in Punjab with comparison to the political manifesto of political parties presented by the media. For this purpose two methods are applied. First an opinion survey is conducted in which a questionnaire is distributed to the target sample with their proportion in terms of educational standards, age groups, linguistic backgrounds and gender so that all the segments of population could be represented. The sample size for survey is comprises 600 respondents from 6 districts (Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Rahim Yar Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan and Rajanpur) of Southern Punjab. Second, the political agenda is extracted from newspapers. Two widely circulated dailies, Daily Nawa-i-Waqt, Multan and Daily Khabrain, Multan are used for content analysis. As the issue of new province is popular in the southern part of Punjab therefore Multan edition of said newspapers are selected for content analysis. Political statements of main leadership and other political developments of all major national and local parties are observed to get the political agenda of political parties. The political manifesto was divided into favorable, unfavorable and neutral political plan. The findings describes that idea of new province is overwhelmingly popular in the public and they want a new province but they are not satisfied with the stance of political parties. People are mostly disappointed with the role played by the politicians of Punjab. People believe that media has highlighted this issue well and shapes the opinion of public. Moreover the notion of new province was present in the past but it has gained the much popularity in this current political scenario. And it is the media who sets the agenda for the public. This study confirms Maxwell Macomb and Donald Shaw's agenda setting theory which states that issues prioritized by media and the public perception when both become consistent this effect is called agenda setting effect of media.