Constructing Conflict and Peace: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Digital Nationalism in Bangladesh–India Border Politics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65826/IJPCR.1.3.2026.49Keywords:
Digital Nationalism; Critical Discourse Analysis; Bangladesh–India Border Politics; Online News Media; Peace Journalism.Abstract
Digital news media have become influential arenas in which national identity, conflict, and international relations are discursively constructed. This study examines how Bangladeshi and Indian online news media frame Bangladesh–India border politics and identifies the discursive strategies through which conflict-oriented and peace-oriented narratives are produced. Integrating Constructivism, Framing Theory, and Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis, the study adopts a comparative qualitative design to analyse a purposively selected corpus of 100 online news items published between January 2024 and December 2025, drawn from Prothom Alo and Dhaka Tribune in Bangladesh and Times of India and NDTV in India. The analysis identifies four recurring discursive orientations, Security, Victim, Peace, and Nationalist, each associated with a specific border issue, lexical marker, and ideological interpretation within this corpus. Bangladeshi media construct migration through securitisation and border killings through peacebuilding, whereas Indian media construct diplomatic tension through identity-based victimhood and the Teesta water dispute through digital nationalism. The corpus also suggests a shift in discursive tone across the temporal phases surrounding specific events, from more negative anticipatory coverage toward more conciliatory post-event narratives, while government, security, and public voices, recorded as a single composite source category, dominate reporting across both national contexts. By integrating digital nationalism, border politics, securitisation, and peace journalism within a comparative qualitative framework, the study advances theoretical understanding of how bilateral conflict and cooperation are linguistically constructed within a purposively selected corpus, while offering practical implications for journalists, policymakers, and peacebuilding initiatives.
References
Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (Rev. ed.). Verso.
Buzan, B., Wæver, O., & de Wilde, J. (1998). Security: A new framework for analysis. Lynne Rienner Publishers. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781685853808
Cons, J. (2014). Impasse and opportunity: Reframing postcolonial territory at the India-Bangladesh border. South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 9. https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.3791 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.3791
Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (4th ed.). Sage.
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x
Entman, R. M. (2004). Projections of power: Framing news, public opinion, and U.S. foreign policy. University of Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226210735.001.0001
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Media discourse. Edward Arnold.
Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (1997). Critical discourse analysis. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction (Vol. 2, pp. 258–284). Sage.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972–1977 (C. Gordon, Ed.). Pantheon Books.
Freedom House. (2025). Freedom on the net 2025: An uncertain future for the global internet. Freedom House. URL: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2025/uncertain-future-global-internet
Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by peaceful means: Peace and conflict, development and civilization. Sage. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446221631
Galtung, J. (1998). High road, low road: Charting the course for peace journalism. Track Two, 7(4), 7–10.
Galtung, J., & Ruge, M. H. (1965). The structure of foreign news. Journal of Peace Research, 2(1), 64–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/002234336500200104 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/002234336500200104
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press.
Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Sage.
Heang, R. (2024). Digital nationalism: Understanding the power of digital technology in the rise of nationalism, national identity, and national narratives. Open Access Library Journal, 11(9). https://doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1112129 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1112129
Hopf, T. (1998). The promise of constructivism in international relations theory. International Security, 23(1), 171–200. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec.23.1.171 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/isec.23.1.171
International Crisis Group. (2025). After the “golden era”: Getting Bangladesh-India ties back on track (Asia Report N°353). International Crisis Group. URL: https://www.crisisgroup.org/rpt/asia-pacific/bangladesh-india/353-after-golden-era-getting-bangladesh-india-ties-back-track
Islam, M. R., & Salam, M. A. (2024). Cross-border perspectives: Analyzing online news media in Bangladesh and India. Communication and Media in Asia Pacific, 7(2), 37–50. https://doi.org/10.14456/cmap.2024.9
Kalim, S., & Janjua, F. (2019). #WeAreUnited, cyber-nationalism during times of a national crisis: The case of a terrorist attack on a school in Pakistan. Discourse & Communication, 13(1), 68–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481318771448 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481318771448
Katzenstein, P. J. (Ed.). (1996). The culture of national security: Norms and identity in world politics. Columbia University Press.
Kreps, S. (2020). Social media and international relations. Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108920377
Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Sage. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0147-1767(85)90062-8
Lynch, J., & Galtung, J. (2010). Reporting conflict: New directions in peace journalism. University of Queensland Press.
Lynch, J., & McGoldrick, A. (2005). Peace journalism. Hawthorn Press.
Lynch, J., & McGoldrick, A. (2013). Responses to peace journalism. Journalism, 14(8), 1041–1058. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884912464175 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884912464175
McDonald, M. (2008). Securitization and the construction of security. European Journal of International Relations, 14(4), 563–587. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066108097553 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066108097553
Mihelj, S., & Jiménez-Martínez, C. (2021). Digital nationalism: Understanding the role of digital media in the rise of ‘new’ nationalism. Nations and Nationalism, 27(2), 331–346. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12685 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12685
Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Robertson, C. T., Eddy, K., & Nielsen, R. K. (2025). Digital news report 2025. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
Onuf, N. (1989). World of our making: Rules and rule in social theory and international relations. University of South Carolina Press.
Patton, M. Q. (2015). Qualitative research & evaluation methods: Integrating theory and practice (4th ed.). Sage.
Tartory, R. (2020). Critical discourse analysis of online publications ideology: A case of Middle Eastern online publications. SAGE Open, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020941471 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020941471
van Dijk, T. A. (1998). Ideology: A multidisciplinary approach. Sage.
Wæver, O. (1995). Securitization and desecuritization. In R. D. Lipschutz (Ed.), On security (pp. 46–86). Columbia University Press.
Wendt, A. (1992). Anarchy is what states make of it: The social construction of power politics. International Organization, 46(2), 391–425. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300027764 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300027764
Wendt, A. (1999). Social theory of international politics. Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511612183
Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (Eds.). (2016). Methods of critical discourse studies (3rd ed.). Sage DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781036235192
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Md. Sipon Mia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
