Crime and Violence Reporting in Broadcast Media: The case of Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) daily court news 'Chilot Zegeba
| dc.contributor.advisor | Amanuel, Amanuel (Asst. professor) | |
| dc.contributor.author | Belehu, Fistum | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-06-28T08:43:20Z | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2023-11-08T13:37:34Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2018-06-28T08:43:20Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2023-11-08T13:37:34Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2017-06 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to evaluate the representation and coverage of crime and violent stories in the daily court news coverage of Fana Broadcasting Corporate named ‘Chilot Zegeba’. The study was informed by theories of representation, framing, social construction and media's social responsibility role. Qualitative methodological approach has been employed in order to address the research questions posed. Contents of Fana daily Crime and Court news were taken in selection for analysis with a time frame (From September, 2016 up to November, 2016), interviewing journalists from Fana (media practitioners) and communication officers of the Federal and Addis Ababa Police Departments (information sources of crime stories) and document review (quarterly reports of the Federal and Addis Ababa Police) methods were also used in conjunction. In order to supplement the content analysis made on purposely selected 58 news items, interviews were conducted with the producers of the daily Crime and Court news (3) and Fana Editorial Monitoring Officers (2). The study revealed that FBC is far from its stated principles of story selection, as few types of criminal cases have dominated the entire story coverage. The media has given a very frequent coverage for corrupt and fraudulent acts committed by senior government officials and merchants. On the contrary, the media presented serious crimes like theft, burglary and physical injury that are eminent threats to the well being of the society and occured at a higher frequency and alarming rate, were given very low rate of coverage. The presence of “law of opposites” in the media's reports indicates that there is a variations on the media (Fana) crime reporting and statistical records of the law enforcement institutions. Fana has been providing misleading information to the public about the well educated members of the society and government officials through its over presentation of the highly inflated rate of coverage on corruption cases committed by senior government officials. The media content analysis also indicates that FBC presentation of corruption cases tends to cause public distrust and questioning of the state competence in serving public’s. Results of the study revealed that Fana is presenting unbalanced and one-sided stories that ignored the voices of the convict. On the other hand the media’s representation of the convicted criminals mostly as rational actors who seek prosperity and success illegally, shows the media’s tendency of revealing the society’s wrong perception of success indirectly by highlighting the high preference of the society's informal way of prosperity. iv The practitioners focusing on describing crime scenarios and rejection of concrete analytical reporting is a prove for Fana's large scale application of economic framing principle and absence of remedy seeking and attribution of responsibility framings. Thus the media's coverage is characterized as informative and narrators of crime incidents rather than being educational and illustration of contextual issues with the analytical presentation remedy menses. Meaning that the news mostly lacks in providing critically analyzed stories that they give weak lessons about the real deriving forces, legal aspects and consequences of crimes committed. On the other hand the absence of a purely stated legal framework that governs the media and information sources coupled with the reluctance of the law enforcement bodies in releasing information to the media has resulted in the poor coverage of contextual issues of the crimes. Though FBC’s regular coverage of crime and court cases is vital in sensitizing the public about accountability incurred by violation of law, its role in social construction and setting of strong common social values is found to be poor as it marginalizes the non law abiding citizens. Its lack of attention towards discharging its social responsibility has also caused failure in forming a strong relationship with law enforcement institutions. All in all, the over reporting of corruption cases with detail presentation of procedures in a way that gives lessons about how to commit offences would certainly cause a decline in the public's trust on the state. On the other hand, the high tone presentation of terror cases with a relative longer air time coverage of the cases and the presentation of corruption cases relatively higher than other crime cases as if the government is taking strong measures at all levels of public serving institutions (with very poor coverage of corruption and fraud cases which took place in the private sectors) reveal the media being susceptible to political impositions of the ruling party. Finally, recommendations are given based on the research findings | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/4568 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Addis Ababa University | en_US |
| dc.subject | Crime news in broadcasting media | en_US |
| dc.title | Crime and Violence Reporting in Broadcast Media: The case of Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) daily court news 'Chilot Zegeba | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |