Framing of the 2016 Amhara Uprising by Local and International Media: EBC and VOA Radio in Focus
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2018-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study examines how the local and international media framed the Amhara Uprising that was a popular anti-government movement from 8 July to 30 September 2016. The study on Amhara Uprising examines that how this social movement/protest was presented in the pro-government news media i.e. Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) national service and Voice of America (VOA) Amharic by employing frame and the protest paradigm model under the umbrella of critical theory as a dominant theoretical frameworks. This frame textual analysis comprised all news, news stories, news analysis and radio programs in the selected periods of the Amhara Uprising on the two news media outlets. The study peruses a purely a qualitative method approach has been employed both to examine the dominant themes/frames narrative structure and editorial pressures and political influences on journalists working in the selected media outlets to use a balanced frame or perspective during the Amhara Uprising. A semi-structured and open-ended in-depth interview was conducted with five respondents or journalists from the two radio stations to understand whether they practiced the very fundamental journalistic professionalism or they had faced some external pressure from political actors and editors when they produced and covered news stories during this social movement. The study selected two media outlets employed different narratives to frame Amhara Uprising. In this regard, the pro-government EBC radio predominantly used the “anti-peace and development forces” frame while VOA Amahric employed an overarching “Ethnic Tension” frame dominantly as a casual analysis for Amhara Uprising. EBC radio with its anti-peace and development forces frame, demonized, marginalized, delegitimized and downplayed the protesters as threat of the social status quo by using the set of routine that always the main stream media employ the conventional protest reporting known as protest paradigm model.
However, VOA radio portrayed the protest as the result of political, economical and social marginalization on Ethnic Amhara people were accommodated in the last 27 years. VOA emphasized on the ethnic tension frame and victimization frame that was characterized by high focus of injuries, causalities and civilians or security forces death. The study of editorial and political pressure on journalists has shown that the respondents were highly influenced by poetical actors and editorial policies to follow a journalistic merit.
Description
Keywords
local and international media, EBC, and VOA radio in Focus