Steeves, LeslieAzhar, Farah2020-12-082020-12-08https://hdl.handle.net/1794/25917Pakistan being the fifth most populous country in the world with limited resources. The demand for contraceptives is low with contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) being 35 %. Most of the health campaigns in Pakistan focus on the supply side rather than generating demand for contraceptives. This project analyzes the family planning promotional messages and looks at how Pakistani women, gender relations, roles and reproductive health are represented by a local nonprofit, Greenstar Social Marketing and an international nonprofit organization, DKT International. Strategic communication policy of both nonprofits is compared. Development communication, culture-centered approach to health communication, Stuart Hall’s system of representation and feminist theories form the theoretical foundation of this project. This dissertation takes a critical-cultural approach to health communication, a field that has predominantly been quantitative in nature. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with producers of the promotional messages of GSM and DKT International Pakistan, and critical discourse analysis of the official documents, television advertisements and Facebook posts of DKT and GSM since 2012. GSM has launched major campaigns like Saathi- Jeet ka Sultan Campaign, Nisa Campaign, Touch Campaign, and Do Campaign, while DKT has launched successful campaigns like Josh, Dhanak/Heer and Prudence Premium. The study finds that DKT International represents women in a bold, seductive way and objectifies women particularly in Josh and Prudence Premium campaigns, while GSM represents women in more passive and traditional roles. This study observes that the IUD campaigns compared to condom campaigns of DKT and GSM focus more on the women’s health and happiness and glorify motherhood. This image of a modern mother is prevalent in various promotional messages of DKT and GSM. Mothers are also represented as saviors of the nation, whereby the nation state negotiates its identity between tradition and modernity anchoring women to its development. The study further observes that DKT and GSM advocate the biomedical approach to family planning rather than the traditional one, which is framed as backward. Contributions to the fields of health communication, postcolonial feminism and other areas of scholarship, as well as limitations and future research directions, are also discussed.en-USAll Rights Reserved.Discourse AnalysisGenderPakistanRepresentationReproductive HealthStrategic CommunicationElectronic Thesis or Dissertation