Representation of Crime and Justice in State media: The Case of the Ethiopian Television’s Police Program
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Date
2013-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study was examining ETV’s representation of crime and justice in its
Police Program. The study was situated within a broader theoretical paradigm of cultural
studies but was specifically informed by theories of representation, semiotic, and Marxist
theory of Ideology. In order to address the research questions posed, a qualitative
methodological approach was employed. What is more, informed by semiotic and Marxist
analytical approaches, textual analytic method was also used. In order to augment the
textual data, interviews were conducted with producers of the Police Program. Textual
analysis was conducted on twelve (12) weekly programs transmitted via ETV during a seven
(7) - month period.
The study revealed that the news narratives of ETV’s Police Program constructed the image
of criminals, victims, police/policing, and courtroom differently to its viewers. Criminals
were portrayed as villains bent on inflicting heinous act against innocent victims in order to
achieve their premeditated goals. Often times, they were identified through their pictures
where the police were said to be pursuing them in order to arrest them. When arrested, they
were often portrayed as powerless subjects paraded in front of judges in the courtroom,
demonstrating the power of the institution of policing or the law enforcement bodies as well
as representing the court as the ultimate dispenser of justice. In so doing, the news
narratives delegitimized crime and criminality whereas it legitimized the institution of
policing and the justice system in the eyes of the public.
With respect to the packaging of news narratives about the victims, the police program used
graphic images of body injuries, fresh wounds and medical treatments the victims were
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undergoing in order to evoke public sympathy for the victims, on one hand, and induce
moral outrage against the perpetrators, on the other.
The ubiquitous portrayal of the images of police and policing in the news stories and the
routinizing of their activities also served the ideological function of the institution in the
sense of helping the public take for granted the institutional role of the police/policing in the
society and see it commonsensical; in so doing, it bestowed legitimacy to community
policing as an institutional response for the control of crime and criminality.
Owing to its wielding of institutional power, in the news narratives, the police served as
news sources, defined the news value, and framed the stories in a way that favored their
worldview. As a result, the portrayals became susceptible to stereotyping of the subjects
based on gender, age and class of criminals and victims.
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Keywords
Crime and Justice in State media