Exploratory Study on the Coverage of Rural Development News on Ethiopian Radio: Case Study of 8 PM (Evening) News

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Date

2007-08

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

The study was conducted to explore the extent of the coverage of development issues on Ethiopian Radio’s evening 8:00 Pm news. Moreover, the research tried to examine the priority Radio Ethiopia gives to development issues the chief goal of the country. Since it has a large audience, a wide coverage, and is aired daily, Ethiopian Radio evening 8:00 Pm news was purposely selected. To assess the main objectives of the projects, the researcher employed content analysis to gather quantitative data. To develop and support this data and to arrive at a comprehensive conclusion, interviews were conducted with journalists and other relevant bodies. The data obtained through interviews were discussed and analyzed qualitatively. The researcher selected a sample of a month, from April 9 to May 8, 2007. The news items’ content was categorized into different groups in a bid to answer the research questions. One of the research questions was to what extent radio covers rural development activities. For the conceptual frame work, different development theories and the Ethiopian development plan were briefly reviewed. Since the government development plan heavily depends on the concept of Agricultural Development Led Industrialization (ADLI), which gives emphasis to rural development, it will be taken as a subject of the study. It is the assumption of the research project that media are a promoter and supporter of the development activities of the country and that journalists have to set agenda purposely for the salient issues. Hence agenda setting theory was used as a central theory The findings of the research revealed that Ethiopian Radio as an agenda setter was rather weak. Rural development news items got relatively little coverage and frequency distribution during the selected period of a month. The research paper argued that rural development as a national agenda could get better coverage and frequency.

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Rural Development News on Ethiopian Radio

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