Media and religion in Ethiopia (original) (raw)
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Mediatization of religion in the Ethiopian mainstream media
The Ethiopian society is dominantly religious. The constitution of the country advocates for a strictly secular approach with a sharp separation of state and religion. This study is mainly intended to examine the transformation of religious reporting (i.e. mediatization of religion) across time and space in the Ethiopian media. The essence and practice of secularization as a guiding principle of journalism in the Ethiopian mainstream media are also assessed. To this end, qualitative and quantitative methods are used. The qualitative aspect involves in-depth interview of 6 experienced journalists and 5 key individuals with considerable media (journalistic) experience from the different Ethiopian religions. The quantitative aspect is done by considering the religious content of three Ethiopian newspapers (Addis Zemen, Reporter and Addis Admass) in 1988/92, 1998. The findings revealed that religion is a neglected topic in the Ethiopian mainstream media. State media often report religion during religious holidays; at other times, it is reported together with such topics as peace, security, development, tourism and national integration. The practice of not considering religion as an independent subject matter is found to emanate partly from a misconception of the principle of secularism and partly from a lack of knowledge and understanding of the issue being reported. As such, the journalists were found to be non-religious in approach, rather than being secular. Private media are also found to give sporadic coverage of religion, and their reports focus mainly on the investigation of corruption in business activities of religious institutions. This seems to be because of lack of interest, commitment and understanding of religion by journalists and because of threats from religious institutions which seem to find it hard to take journalistic criticism and investigations positively.
MEDIA AND POLITICS IN ETHIOPIA
The paper aimed at analyzing the political discourse and dynamics of the Ethiopian media in the last three regimes. To this end, scholarly works such as books, articles and other sources in the area of media (print and electronics) 2 and politics were reviewed. Discourse analysis was applied to examine the various debates of the media practices and politics in Ethiopia. The study revealed that media and politics in Ethiopia are highly intertwined. The political history of the nation throughout all periods has dictated the development of Ethiopian media. The media has served wishes and whims of those on power. During the incumbent government, however, some improvements have been discerned with the introduction of dual ownership system for the first time in the nation's history, but overall working condition is debatable. The professionalism of journalists, media management and organization and independence of the media need to be improved. Mainly, the analysis indicates that the media must be run by an independent media council and should exercise self regulation.
Journal of Religion, Media, and Digital Culture, 2023
The paper explores whether Ethiopian media report on the religious reasons behind the terrorist attack against 30 Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church (eotc) followers in Libya in 2015. A framing analysis of newspaper articles reporting on the event reveal that the religious identity of the victims, and the religious justification for the massacre, have been suppressed, and it has been presented as a common, criminal offence, and political act. The government is found to be the dominant framing force creating and shifting public opinion in the reports, while the eotc's influence is found to be restricted. The state newspaper Addis Zemen shows favoritism towards the government in its framing of the event. The private newspapers are critical of this favoritism. It is found that journalists' perceiving that secularism means writing articles and news reports that are free of religion, and anti-eotc rhetoric that has been voiced by consecutive governments since the 1970s appear to be contributing factors to this framing negligence.
Mass Media in Today's Ethiopia: Threat or Opportunity? (Insamer Social Research Center, 2018)
Sociologically speaking, one of the most powerful social institutions in modern society is media. It affects and defines society's culture, family structure, politics, history, religion, identity, and normative orders. Of its various forms, these two centuries can provide us with clear and relevant researches, testimonies, pieces of evidence, and experiences showing the undisputed role that is being played by mass media. Broadly encompassing newspapers, radios, televisions and others, mass media continues to unpack its unsettling shock waves day in, day out. Of these, again, the role of television is much more important than others, simply because it promises to offer no platform for interaction. On top of this, motion pictures coupled with sounds, compared to other means of communication, make television a power weapon for good use or misuse. One of the rarely diagnosed effects of mass media is its negative consequence in the form of mass hypnosis. Although, arguably, this could potentially produce a positively functional outcome to those who control the media (that is, the state, political, religious, or economic-based interest groups), approached from the consumers' perspective, the effect would be much less helpful and attractive. As its purposely induced intervention, hypnosis entails a state of human consciousness drawing its existential energy from human being's focused attention and controlled-reduction of environmental awareness. This way, hypnosis serves to exploit human beings' susceptibility to responses to presented stimuli (in our case mass media materials such as political, economic, and/or religious). Ethiopia has been, for quite some time, struck by the meagerness of mass media alternatives. The public sphere only entertained the Ethiopian Radio and Television broadcasts, state-owned media outlets. This was accompanied by state and privately-owned newspapers and magazines, the number of which, though, remains highly unreliable. There is a good reason underpinning this. Whenever some sort of public outcry causes inconvenience to the status quo, experiences and testimonies show, the quantity of privately run newspapers and magazines go south. Drawing from global experiences, we may claim that the presence of some degree of democracy ushers an increase in the relative fertile ground for alternative voices. Unfortunately, this rarely happens in Ethiopia. Probably since the first-half of EPRDF's (Ethiopian Peoples Republic Democratic Front) a quarter of a century plus rule, a new trend is emerging in Ethiopia. The number of so called " privately-owned " radios and TV stations reached an all-time high in the country. As of 2017, there were ten public radio stations, six globally transmitted public television stations, and nine public satellite television stations. On the other hand, there were ten private radio stations (the lion's share is taken by Fana Broadcasting Corporation,
Media Treatment on Religion Issues
2018
The contestation of the 2017 regional head election of DKI Jakarta is over, but its impact on social life and religious primordial issue is still felt across Indonesia. This situation could not be separated from the way that television (media) treats primordial issues such as religion as their media streaming themes. This study aims to describe the treatment of television as the media for Islamic issues and its relation to the theory of hidden agenda setting and its adherence to journalistic ethics (independency, accuracy, and balance). The qualitative approach by extensive library research was used to do this study. Data were analyzed qualitatively to find connection media streaming, Islamic issues and the ethics. Television as media was not working properly. It was found that the television streamed important session which was not considered important by the public. Public opinion tends to put television as media for pseudo framing and propaganda of some certain groups. The study ...
Representation of Religious Conflict in Local Media
Journal of Islamic World and Politics
The media always try their best to represent reality for their audiences, with the hope of retaining readers and increasing company revenues. However, in depicting the reality of religious conflict, the media often contradicts the norms, ethics, and code of ethics of journalism itself. The purpose of this study was to determine the representation of religious conflict in local media, namely the Ahmadiyah conflict in West Java, which was published in the Pikiran Rakyat in news coverage from 2010 to 2011. This study used Teun A. van Dijk's critical discourse analysis method. The results of the study show that Pikiran Rakyat represents the Ahmadiyah conflict in various ways, including dividing the object of its reporting into two camps, strong and weak, by branding Ahmadiyah as a deviant, banned, and disbanded organization. The strong side is an organization supported by the government, and the weak side is Ahmadiyah, which does not receive government protection and support. Pikira...
CIMA Q&A with Yohannes Eneyew Ayalew: The Dangers of Media "Ethnification" in Ethiopia
Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) Q&A with Yohannes Eneyew Ayalew, 2021
In a year of civil war, thousands of Ethiopians have been killed, millions have been forced from their homes, and all parties to the conflict have committed heinous atrocities which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the latest joint probe of the United Nations and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. The conflict has been fought along regional and ethic lines, which overlap in Ethiopia. Those same lines of conflict have been drawn across Ethiopia’s media sector, which was liberalized when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed first took office in 2018. A recent IMS study by Terje Skjerdal and Mulatu Alemayehu Moges details how the ethnicized politics of the country has subsumed many journalists and their audiences. In a process Skjerdal and Mulatu describe as “ethnification,” media houses aligned with a single linguistic group are promoting narratives that intensify political fractures, raising questions about how to ensure Ethiopia’s media industry remains free, independent, and ethical. In this post, Ethiopian legal scholar and 2020 Open Internet for Democracy Leader Yohannes Eneyew Ayalew discusses this issue of media “ethnification” in Ethiopia. He explains how it applies across different forms of media, and the roles of various stakeholders, including social media companies and the government, in finding solutions. His answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
In many African countries, since the nineties, there is a subtle contest going on between religious and political leaders. At the heart of this contest is what Rosalind Hack-ett described as the redefinition of the categories of power and status, which cease to be primarily tied to material wealth or political connection, but rather to spiritual authority and revelation. This is a struggle for the hegemonic control of the society in the Gramscian sense of the term. While political leaders may use the coercive arms of the state-military might as well as their control of the financial resources of the state to impose their authority, religious leaders on the other hand assume the posture of moral icons, personalities endowed with superior knowledge based on divine revelation. As these contestations are played out in the public sphere, the way the leaders are able to portray themselves to their public will determine their followership. This explains the importance of mediation in the p...
Ethiopian journalism from self-censoring to silence: a case of reporting on internal conflict
This article examines the extent to which journalists of The Daily Monitor and The Ethiopian Herald report on internal conflict, especially ethnic conflicts, which were prevalent during the study period, from 2005 to 2013, in Ethiopia. These two English medium dailies newspapers were purposely selected due to their high circulation and longevity in the media market as well as their focus on current affairs. The study employed both content analysis and interviews data collection and process in tools. The result shows that only a small number of internal conflict stories were reported in the selected newspapers and journalists were found to prefer refraining from reporting ethnic conflicts. This is attributable to the fact that journalists live in the circle of fear and self-censorship resulting in the exclusion of ethnic-related conflict stories in the selected media.