Rhetoric in the Ethiopian state media: A framing analysis
The Ethiopian state media is habitually considered a mouthpiece of the government. Purportedly, the official media favour the ruling party through political appointments in the media organizations, foregrounding of official policy in journalistic coverage, negligence of oppositional voices, and so forth. This is supported by various studies which have scrutinized the bias of the state media, primarily through a content analysis approach. However, there are hardly any studies which have engaged such analyses in a wider framework, taking into consideration the production processes and the general newsroom culture of the state media. The aim of the present study is, therefore, to contribute to a more comprehensive analysis of the rhetoric of the Ethiopian state media. This is done through a framing analysis of a documentary series that was broadcast on Ethiopian Television (ETV) from August 2009 to January 2010. The documentary series focused on the condition of the private press in Ethiopia, and consisted altogether of 14 programmes (including a follow-up studio discussion of four programmes). Broadcast ahead of the May 2010 elections, the documentary took a highly critical view on the private press and provided ample evidence for the press’ allegedly failure to perform good journalism and contribute to the democratization process in Ethiopia. The paper goes into detail about the argument in the documentary series and analyses how the programmes correspond with the government’s critical stance towards the private media in Ethiopia.
Publisert i Paper presented at the 1st conference of the East African Communication Association (EACA), Nairobi, Kenya, 2011
Les artikkelen her