Censorship and Ethics: Practice and Problems in Ethiopian Television
| dc.contributor.advisor | Arsano, Yacob (PhD) | |
| dc.contributor.author | Alemu, Solomon | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-07-03T07:14:45Z | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2023-11-08T13:37:45Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2018-07-03T07:14:45Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2023-11-08T13:37:45Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2005-12 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This study generally deals with the practice of censorship and its ethical effects in the government owned Ethiopian Television. It has been based on the hypothesis that direct censorship imposed by the government authorities or politicians and self-censorship which is the result of internalized fear of punishment among the journalists are the reasons for underreporting contending political views. The rational to study this issue is the threat that repressive governmental influence and control of the media could pose to the newly emerging multi-party politics in the country. The broadcast media in general and the television in particular have remained under the monopoly of government fourteen years after the promise for democracy and the democratic media that can entertain plural voices. This medium has made a bad name for itself, for its lack of depth and one-side reporting of events. It has been restricted to serving the political propaganda of the party in power to the extent of committing out right bias and bombarding opposition parties that holds viewpoints critical to or different from the government. This is what has made imperative a need to study the problem of censorship and its ethical consequences. Three methods are employed to conduct this study. The first is survey method. Selfadministered questioner is responded by the editors and reporters working in four newsrooms of ETV to elicit the forms of direct censorship, self-censorship and the major target issues. Secondly, the contents of some news stories selected from post-election 2005 ETV coverage are analyzed to show the fairness of the coverage towards the ruling and opposition political parties. Thirdly interviews are conducted with five selected and willing journalists to supplement the responses given by the questionnaire. The analysis of the data has shown direct censorship is practiced in ETV through assigning faithful 5 party members, providing guidelines or directives to the journalists and directly reviewing the contents of the news stories. Self-censorship is also manifested in several forms. One is dodging political issues particularly reporting opposition parties. The journalists also tone up and tone down political issues based on the interests of the ruling party. The other form of self-censorship is that journalists are externalizing their responsibility regarding the transmission of sensitive new stories. This is often practiced by consulting the faithful party members in the medium to decide on the fate of the sensitive issues like coverage of the opposition parties. It is a tactic used by editors to manage the risk of punishment. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/5683 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Addis Ababa University | en_US |
| dc.subject | Censorship and Ethics | en_US |
| dc.title | Censorship and Ethics: Practice and Problems in Ethiopian Television | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |