Identifying the discursive trajectory of social change – a systematic discourse theoretical framework

This article has two main objectives. One, to advance methodological development in both discourse theory and media and communications research by proposing an eclectic, replicable methodology. Two, to demonstrate how to apply that methodology to furnish both ontic and ontological explanations for the contingent origins of a discourse using the editorials of the Pakistani newspaper The Nation on the Pakistan Steel Mills privatization case as a case study. An earlier study had identified the surprising conclusion that this traditionally conservative paper had from the outset fully endorsed the radical opposition to the government’s suspension of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan which led to an uprising known as the Lawyers’ Movement. This article locates the origins of that shift in the newspaper’s reaction to the Pakistan Steel Mills privatization issue. The article has implications for the fields of discourse theory, media and communication studies, and political science.