Mapping The Ethiopian Television Landscape: Legal and Audience Perspectives
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Date
2007-10
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The television landscape in Ethiopia is getting more diversified in terms of global media reception whereas its local dimension is not developing so much as the country has only one state-owned television with scant component of entertainment. The sole prevalence of state television stands against legal provisions which allow other forms of ownership for commercial, public and community broadcasting services. Mapping the Ethiopian Television Landscape: Legal and Audience Perspectives attempts to describe the television landscape in Ethiopia focusing more on the legal provisions pertinent to television ownership and programming and the reception of global and local television programmes. The research analysed relevant legal documents to show the potentials and limitations of provisions for television broadcasting, thereby exploring the extent to which the legal framework is enabling. Moreover, the interplay between the reception of global and local television programming was examined through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews facilitated for college/university students so as to explore how audiences make meaning out of particularly Western cultural products.
The findings of the study show that young audiences have significantly sidelined local television and developed an increasing interest towards global television products. Given the perceived irrelevance of local television to their needs, the appreciation of Western cultural values by young audiences who have accesses to transnational television outlets is evident. Under the circumstances, young audiences’ appreciation of their own values may come from the social environment they live in but not that much from the local television they rarely watch. The legal provisions allow the issuance of license to commercial, public and community broadcasting services. However, these provisions also somehow determine what programmes broadcasters should design. Since the regulator is highly government-affiliated, some of the restrictions and obligations for the regulator’s inspection can create inconvenience for broadcasters to get in to the business.
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Legal and Audience Perspectives