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