Media and Democracy in Ethiopia: Roles and Challenges of the Private Media Since 2005
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Date
2013-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
It could universally be agreed that the form of government that is ideal and preferable to any other forms is democracy. Democracy is preferable because it gives an opportunity for the people to participate in decision-making that affects their lives. The process of decision-making would mostly, if not all the time, be facilitated through the provision of information and forum by the media. Being considerate of this notion, this study was mainly conducted to examine what roles the Ethiopian private media are playing in the democratization of the country since 2005 and what challenges are obstructing them when trying to discharge democratic functions. To this end, the study has employed social responsibility theory of the press, the public sphere, media politics theory, and Hallin and Mancini’s models of media systems as its theoretical frameworks. The theories in general take into account the democratic roles that media could play in a given democratic governance.
Triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods has been employed. Accordingly, 40 questionnaires were distributed to journalists who were randomly selected from the private media and in-depth interviews have been conducted with 13 informants who were purposively selected from the media, journalists’ professional associations, government offices, and political parties.
The result of the study revealed that the Ethiopian private media are not properly carrying out the democratic roles that they are expected to play owing to both internal and external challenges. The internal challenges included journalists’ poor understanding of some of the roles, poor level of journalistic professionalism, and economic and institutional incapabilities.
The external challenges, on the other hand, included, among others, the reluctance of government officials to give information for journalists, the government’s poor, or no recognition of the private media’s democratic roles and lack of support from the government.
The study has also attempted to identify the kind of relationship that the private media have with the government and political parties. Accordingly, it reveals that there is an unfriendly relationship with the government while there is a good relationship with the political parties
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Roles and Challenges of the Private media