Constructing Conflict: Fake News Typology, Artificial Intelligence, and Political Ideology in Indian War Journalism during the 2025 Indo–Pakistan Escalation

Abstract

This study analyzed ideologically motivated disinformation propagated built by Indian television journalists during the armed escalation between India and Pakistan during 2025. The focal point of the study was to explore the nature, motive and socio-political impacts of fake news being aired by leading Indian news channels and to understand the process of reinforcing nationalism, militarism and enemy-othering through fake news. The use of the qualitative-critical research design, which was applied at the social practice level in interpreting the media discourse, is based on the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model by Fairclough (1995) and analyzed based on the ideological and institutional context of the media. Another two theoretical lenses were used for classification of false content: the Information Disorder Framework introduced by Wardle and Derakhshan (2017) which classifies misinformation, disinformation, and misinformation; and the Typology of Fake News introduced by Tandoc et al. (2018) which classifies fabrication, manipulation, and propaganda. The corpus consisted of 98,060 war related news items in television news coverage during the conflict in May 2025 from the top seven channels Aaj Tak, Republic Bharat, Times Now, NDTV, ABP News and others. Content was fact-checked using fact-checking organizations Alt News, BOOM FactCheck and Deutsche Welle (DW). Content analysis and discourse-level analysis were carried out using SPSS which focused on the factuality, emotional framing, intent to deceive and ideological positioning. The results revealed that the amount of news that was fabricated, manipulated or propagandistic was as high as 99% of the war related news spread by several channels. Media was used not as a medium of information but as an instrument of the State ideology, using AI-produced images, content from overseas sources and super-nationalist slogans to create fear, pride and hostility. The lack of democratic debate and citizens' confidence in government was further eroded by emotional manipulation and institutional censorship. The study brings in a theory-driven, empirically grounded analysis of wartime journalism to enrich the scholarship on media discourse and disinformation and emphasizes the need to enhance the accountability of the media and protect public discourse from state related disinformation in times of war.

Keywords: Fake News; Disinformation; India–Pakistan Conflict; Critical Discourse Analysis; Nationalism; Media Ethics; Propaganda; Misinformation; AI-Generated Content; Ideological Narrative