PROMOTIONAL CAPTURE: ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALISM AND COMPETING EPISTEMOLOGIES OF LAHORE SMOG COVERAGE ON YOUTUBE

Abstract

The epistemic construction of environmental crises on YouTube in developing countries remains poorly understood. This study investigates how competing Pakistani YouTube channels construct, justify, and communicate environmental knowledge about Lahore’s annual smog crisis, an area that, to the best of researcher’s knowledge, no published research has examined through an epistemological lens. Drawing on Ekström and Westlund’s (2019) epistemologies of digital journalism framework and a non-reactive qualitative document analysis of 35 videos, the study compares Dawn News English (an institutional legacy newsroom) and Discover Pakistan (a lifestyle infotainment network). Dawn anchors truth claims in independent quantification, expert testimony, and structural recurrence; Discover Pakistan validates claims through official access, enforcement spectacle, and citizen gratitude. The data surface patterns suggestive of what is provisionally termed promotional capture, a sensitizing concept, not an established construct, in which creator-style affective authenticity appears fused with provincial government publicity, displacing environmental accountability in favour of solution-celebration. The results suggest potential application to institutional environmental journalism capacity in Pakistan, independent AQI dashboards, and increased public disclosure as to government-aligned digital environmental communication.