Framing the Speeches of PM Abiy Ahmed in Print Media: The Case of Ethiopian Herald and Reporter Newspapers
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Date
2019-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The main aim of this study was to examine how the government-owned Ethiopian Herald and privately-owned the reporter framed the speeches of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. This research took the speeches of prime minister as its unit of analysis to examine the process of message development during his four month’s period in power from April 3, 2018 to August 4, 2018.The researcher employed both quantitative and qualitative approaches. To conduct the study, two newspapers namely Ethiopian Herald and the Reporter which have a relatively high coverage of political, economic and social issues were purposely selected. The volume of the coverage, placement of the story, type of the story, tone of the story and sources used in the news related to Prime Minister speech were examined. The type of frame the two newspapers used is also examined. Framing theory and agenda setting theory was mainly used as theoretical framework for the study due to its importance in media study. This study is a descriptive design whereby both quantitative and qualitative methods were applied. In-depth interviews with journalists and editors involved in framing the prime minister’s speech news were also used to support the content analysis. Result of this study revealed that the Ethiopian Herald give coverage to the prime minister’s speech in a way that execute government policy and strategy while the reporter coverage was critical. However, the tone of the selected media coverage toward the premier was positive and news stories related to the premier were low compare to the coverage given by Reporter. The study concluded that the speech of the prime minister was framed by the government-owned and privately-owned newspapers. Ethiopian Herald framed the speech of the prime minister in simple words while the reporter framed it by using even descriptive words including metaphor.
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Journalisme