Framing of Political Parties by the Ethiopian Print Media in 2015 Ethiopia National Election: Addis Zemen and Reporter in focus

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Date

2016-06

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

The main purpose of the stud y wa s to exami ne how th e sta te-owned Add is Ze men and p riva te ly own ed The Reporter fram ed th e political parti es of the co un try in the 2015 Ethi op ian Ge neral Election. To conduct th e stud y two newspa pers namely, Ad di s Zemen and Reporter w ith a relative ly larger ci rcula tion and hi gh coverage of do mes ti c politics were purposefu ll y se lected. Newspape rs publ ished with in the pe ri od of Fe bru ary 24 to May 20, 20 15 we re the fo c us of the stud y in relatio n w ith the beginning of pol iti ca l pa rti es electorate camping. Two co ntending p arties na me ly EPRDF, the rulin g p art y and Blue party from oppositi on parti es were cons id ered for the stud y. In form cd by Framin g th eo ry and Po litical econo my theo r y, th e st ud y set ou t to answer three basic re searc h questions by employ in g both qualitati ve and quan titative method s to gather th e necessary data. Th e study used co nt ent analys is as principal in strum e nt of data co ll ection and 79 sto ri es from both newspapers were a na lyzed. Furthermore, in order to stren gth e n the stud y in-depth interv ie ws have bee n co nducted w ith 5 journali sts and 2 editors w ho we re purposive ly selected from the se lected print m ed ia. The finding of the s tud y revealed that th e govenm1 ent owned newspaper Ad di s Zemen portrayed EPRDF po s itively but it po[trayed B lu e Part y nega ti ve ly. On co ntrary, Reporter was cri tica l o n coverin g iss u es about both parti es and it po rtrayed bo th EPRDF and Blue Part y negativel y a nd thi s shows th at there was bi as on both governm e nt and private med ia on framin g E PROF a nd Blue. Thi s could lead less inform ed and mu ch polari zed electorate . B ased o n the intervi ew w ith t he se lec ted editors and journalists , skill gap (lack of professionalism) med ia ownersh ip, meeting deadl ines (Journalist professional routines) stick in g to few o r redundant news sources were the u nderlini ng motive behind th e fra m ing of po li tica l parties. The result of th e study revealed that both confli ct frame and attribution of re s ponsibility frame were fo und to be th e mo st manipu lated fram e in both newspapers in contra st h u man interest, morality and prognostic fra m es was les s utili zed fr am e. Fin a ll y b ased on th e findings of the stud y, a couple of recommendations for further research were forwarded.

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Keywords

Framing of Political Parties

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