Media and culture: a case study of ashenda as portrayed in Tigrigna Television Programs
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Date
2011-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Culture is created, shared, transmitted, transformed, and preserved by communication.
For we are at the age of globalization, wherein the power of mass communication is
unprecedented pervasive, the mass media are highly impacting cultures positively and /or
negatively. Consequently, media portrayals of cultural matters deserve special attention.
However, such special attention is not observed being given in the Ethiopian media’s
cultural portrayals as the quality and quantity of such portrayals are said to be
unsatisfactory. As a result, a media and cultural study entitled Media and Culture: A
Case Study of Ashenda as Portrayed in Tigrigna Television Programs was conducted. It
is a qualitative inquiry into how the mass media are being used for cultural development,
and how they are using culture’s potential for national development. This is made
possible by taking Tigrigna television programs in portraying Ashenda, an annually
celebrated cultural festival, as a case study. To this end data were gathered from
purposively selected documents (texts), individual in-depth interviewees and focus group
discussants; and were analyzed as per to the theories and principles of media, culture
and communication. Taking place dominantly at Mekelle city and its surrounding
villages, the research has come with the finding that despite the media’s attempts to
cover the cultural festival are encouraging, the way they portray the culture is deficient
and shallow, thus incapable to preserve and/or to transform the culture. Plus, the very
conception of culture’s potential for national development at the media level is minimal.
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Culture