Abstrict

Panama Papers are almost a set of 11.5 million documents that were leaked privately. This study contributes to the impact that media poses in changing the opinion of individuals over issues, events or news. The information was collected through survey methodology in which the researcher divided the University students into 5 categories from whom the information was collected; these categories included Arts, Natural Science, Engineering, Agriculture and Social Science. The sample selected for the research was 300 respondents from these categories, and 60 students were chosen through Systematic sampling from every category from whom the information was collected; the study findings show that most of the students of Bahauddin Zakariya University were familiar with the Panama leaks issue and got to know about it through social media. The study also finds that among the students who are aware of Panama leaks, many of them believe in the credibility and veracity of the issue. In this study, the Pearson Chi-squared test indicates there is a correlation between people’s perception about the veracity of Panama Leaks and their trust in the explanation provided by the Shareef family.

Keywords

Nawaz Shareef, Panama Leaks, University, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Students,      University

Introduction

Objectives

1. To assess the awareness of people regarding the Panama Leaks issue

2. To inquire the medium through which people got to know about the Panama Leaks issue

3. To inquire the perception of Bahauddin Zakariya Students about Panama Leaks.

4. To observe the credibility of the information given in the Panama Leaks issue from the point of view of Students of BZU

Purpose of the Study

This study also helped us to determine the individual’s opinion regarding the accountability process of the influential political personalities that either they think of it as a tough task in Pakistan or the powerful personalities also stand by the rules and regulations of the country. The result of the study leads us to the foundation of comparison for the future happenings regarding different issues and people perception building according to the highlighting of the issue by the media using different mediums and credibility processes.

Literature Review

According to Zaidi (2016), World’s most powerful political players in their article pointed to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the king of Saudi Arabia, Iceland’s prime minister and the family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, among dozens of others. This update of these political leaders puts a question mark on their services as a goodwill character for their countries as their name was highlighted among the name of the influential personalities around the world who have avoided tax and saved their money in Tax heavens. People perception was influenced, and the panic in Ice land led to the resignation of the Prime minister of Iceland.  

The Guardian (2016) reported that after these issues, many World leaders like Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson of Iceland, Prime Minister of Ukraine Arsenly Yetsenyuk and Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Temir Sariyev had stepped aside from the Prime Ministers position, which shows the level of intensity of this issue has around the world. The change of opinion and rage of people due to the discomfort of being looted for the trust they had in the leaders banished within few days of the leaks and people’s opinion for the leaders of their country changed, leading them to resign from their designation due to the intensity issue caused due to the reason that how the issue was highlighted in the media. 

Wiki leaks had influence all over the world due to publishing some sensitive information, but the main consequences of the website came down to the trust in the government. This was a very sad example of both the United States and Britain, by the controversies surrounding the Iraq war and the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction.

According to Karhula (2012), leaks had divided opinion among the organization of civil rights; many considered it a violation of liberty and human rights, while some of them openly supported the leaks because they supported fair rules and regulations and transparent democracy among the civil society and moreover they supported it because they considered it unjustified in using the authority in their interest and which is leading toward killing for which there should be a legal ground of secrecy to stop the misuse of authority. While wiki leaks also faced criticism because such mistakes can affect into an opposite direction in terms of making information more secure and increase the restriction on them.

Rudder et al. (2014) describes Lux leaks that when Luxleaks were leaked, the effect of it on the opinion of the public was really huge as it clearly referred to the role of Jean Junker, the new president of the European Commission, who was appointed just a few days ago while Jean Junker was a prime minister of Luxembourg when the tax avoidance rules were made regarding any of the countries. President of the European Commission Jean Claud Junker would face a vote of no confidence in the Parliament of Europe, and moreover, the Liberals of Member of European Parliament also demanded official accountability over Jean Claud Junker’s tax avoidance records.

Entman (1989) explains that the messages delivered in politics are linked with political attitudes of the readers or listeners and the standard assertion which was carried on the quote “Media affects what people think about, not what they think” While the finding clearly shows that media also has an impact on what people think towards their political likeness and analysis and this is all by impacting upon what people think about which leads towards the perception building of the individuals regarding a certain notion.

The research in which it was evaluated that either the religious content shown on media has an impact on people’s lives in terms of perception, thinking, ideology etc or not and it was found that there was quite evident change in behavior of those individuals who got exposed to religious content through the media and they started to evaluate their own personality and tried to change themselves to be a better person and to rebuild their surroundings to be more calm and better (Bisma, 2013) Politics is most important thing in consideration to any countries progress and government and other people who want to be in authority try really anxiously to build the mind of people in their opinion and currently political talk shows are made with entertainment content as well to attract youth towards the political parties and from the research results we can undoubtedly conclude that media is bringing more people to vote in elections from the youth which shows the impact of news and shows media is showing and its influence on youth’s perception (Khan Waqar, 2013). 

According to Pakistan Today (2017), the scandal of  Panama leaks in which Pakistan’s Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Shareef was undergoing a trial in the Supreme Court of Pakistan for a long time, was finally concluded in which the result showed that due to lack of proves the Supreme Court judges decided to form a JIT panel, but still it is considered to be difficult for NAB and FIA to look upon investigation on the president of the ruling party, but the result of Supreme court clearly showed their lack of trust Prime minister Nawaz Shareef. This later led to loose of a lot of supporters for Prime Minister Mian Mohammad Nawaz Shareef’s political party PML N due to the change of opinion and the result announced by the biggest institution of justice in Pakistan.

Hypothesis

H1: It is more likely that youth is well aware of Panama leaks.

H2: It is more likely that social media is the major source of awareness for youth about Panama leaks.

H3: It is more likely that youth consider Panama leaks a real issue.

H4: There is a correlation between people’s trust in the veracity of the Panama issue and trust in explanation by the Shareef family on Panama Leaks

H5: It is more likely that student who had a negative perception of Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef has not changed their minds.

Methodology

In this research, the data will be collected through survey methodology as the researcher in this research study is dealing with the perception of the people for which the perception of the people can be extracted with the help of a questionnaire. In this research, the data is collected through a systematic sampling technique. While the division of population was carried through cluster sampling dividing the population of Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan into 5 categories Social Science, Natural Science, Arts, Agriculture and Engineering, the categories consisted of different education departments. Data in this study has been collected from a sample of size of 300 students of Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan. In this study, report percentages, bar charts and tables were used to analyze the data. Further, those tables and charts are explained with the description according to the results collected by the researcher during the process of the survey.




Findings

The data analysis has been divided into two parts. The first part of the chapter is composed of the frequencies of the particular variables understudy in the hypothesis expressed in the form of tables and simple bar charts. The first part also provides a short description of the tables and charts shown. The second part of this chapter reproduces the tables of the first part, then moves forward with the required test statistics to check the validity of claims in each hypothesis. It provides the test statistics, degree of freedom, and confidence level, calculated value of the statistic and result of each hypothesis.

 




Table 1. The worthiness of Statement by Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef and the Truth about Panama Leaks According to Respondent’s Opinion




Opinion about Veracity of Panama Leaks	The worthiness of Statements given by Nawaz Shareef According to the Respondents		Total
	Yes	No
Yes	68 22.7%	189 63.0%	257 85.7%
No	16 5.3%	27 9.0%	43 14.3%
Total	84 28.0%	216 72.0%	300 100.0%

Calculations

Chi-Squared value: 2.112

Degree of Freedom: 1

p-value: 0.146

Interpretation

The p-value obtained from Pearson Chi-squared

the test indicates there is a correlation between people’s

perception about the veracity of Panama Leaks and their trust in the explanation provided by the Shareef family about Panama Leaks. This means that the opinion of people who have trust in Shareef

family’s explanation will likely be affected by their 

opinion about what they think of Panama Leaks to be true or not.  




Table 2. Participants with Positive view Point Regarding Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef and Change in Change in Perception after Leaks




Positive viewpoint about Nawaz Shareef before Panama Leaks	Change in Perception		Total
	Yes	No
Yes	70 23.3%	47 15.7%	117 39.0%
No	57 19.0%	126 42.0%	183 61.0%
Total	127 42.3%	173 57.7%	300 100.0%

Interpretation

In the above table, the result shows that those students who had a positive viewpoint about Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef, Has their opinion changed or has the opinion of those students changed who had negative viewpoint/perception about Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef.? The results show that, moreover, the students who had a negative perception of Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef their opinion did not change. The reason for no change of opinion could be that the panama leaks issue was against Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef reputation while these students already had negative viewpoints regarding him; therefore, no change in their viewpoint or perception was found about Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef.

Conclusion

The results collected from the survey shows that majority of the youth of Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan was well aware of the Panama leaks issue; the research study also worked on the medium through which the students got to know about the panama leaks issue, the results of the study found that majority of the students got to know about Panama leaks issue through television and social media was the second most popular source which helped the people to get information about Panama leaks or getting awareness regarding Panama leaks issue. 

The respondents who were questioned about the credibility of the Panama leaks issue believed in the credibility of the leaks, while there were only a few people who don’t believe in the authenticity and credibility of Panama leaks. The study showed a correlation between the true worthiness of Panama leaks and the statements given by Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef as the majority of respondents didn’t believe in the statements given by Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef while they believe in the authenticity and reliability of the issue. The results of the study also show that students had a negative point of view about Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef, and after the leaks, the ratio of change of opinion was less than the perception of people that remained the same 

References

• Bisma, I. (2013). Impact of religious channel on society: A survey of students of Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan
• Cooper, C. (2016). David Cameron urged to act on Panama Papers: Retrieved from
• Entman, R. (1989). How the Media Affect What People Think: An Information Processing Approach:The journal of politics: George Washington University
• Karhula, P. (2012). What is the effect of WikiLeaks for Freedom of Information:
• Khan, W. (2013). Impact of political talk shows on youth: Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan.
• Nuix. (2016). Uncovering Panama leak and its facts: Retrieved from
• Rudder, B. (2016). Victims of Offshore:
• Story of Pakistan. (2013). Mian Muhammad Nawaz ShareedL
• The Guardian. (2016). Panama papers a special investigation:
• The Guardian. (2016). The Panama Papers: how the world's rich and famous hide their money offshore
• Zaidi. (2016). Panama papers reveal Shareef family's offshore holdings: