Not quite an echo chamber: Ethnic debate on Ethiopian Facebook pages during times of unrest
Social media commonly function as alternative channels for debate in controlled media societies, often assisted by the digital diaspora. This study takes a closer look at one such society, Ethiopia, where communication traditionally has been heavily controlled by the government. The situation was particularly tense from 2016 to 2017, when a state of emergency was declared following anti-government protests. The situation meant stronger control with bloggers and journalists than usual, and citizens could be arrested for triggering disturbance through social media platforms such as Facebook. The study scrutinizes three of the most popular channels in the Ethiopian websphere (Ethiopian DJ, Mereja.com and Zehabesha), all of which used Facebook as their primary publication channel during the unrest. The findings show that most of the stories posted by the sites were of political nature, as opposed to stories concerning economy, culture and entertainment. Stories concerning ethnic issues were particularly emphasized. Reader reactions, on the other hand, show a slightly different pattern, whereby fewer of the comments concern politics and more are related to society and culture. This could be an expression of the anxiety felt among the population towards political participation at the time. Interestingly yet, when users do comment on ethnic issues, they are not in agreement, but debate the issues intensely and fiercely. This indicates that the debates attached to the particular Facebook sites did not come out in favour of one particular group or argument, but represented a diverse discussion in terms of the views expressed. An echo chamber effect was not identified. Overall, in lack of appropriate channels for public discussion in the mainstream media, Facebook accommodated a place for political exchange during the state of emergency.
Publisert i Paper presented at the 9th annual conference of the East African Communication Association (EACA), 2019
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