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Media Framing of the Tigray-Conflict: A Comparative Study of The Reporter and The Ethiopian Herald
University West, School of Business, Economics and IT, Divison of Law, Economics, Statistics and Politics.
University West, School of Business, Economics and IT, Divison of Law, Economics, Statistics and Politics.
2021 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

On November 4, 2020, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed requested a military incursion against provincial forces in Tigray region. He explained that the military offensive was a response to an attack led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on an army barracks for government troops inside the region. In the following months of dissension between Dr Abiy's administration and heads of Tigray's most predominant political party, the TPLF, the conflict escalated heavily. In the past few months, the lack of information of what is happening in the Tigray region has set the scene for a fully-fledged propaganda war.

In light of newfound claims of human rights abuses carried out by federal troops, a national debate regarding the Tigray-crisis has been ignited. This study intends to examine the framing of the Tigray-conflict news coverage by two domestically operated media companies, namely, the Reporter and the Ethiopian Herald. To conduct this investigation, the thesis will focus on four specific frames that have been identified by scholars such as W. Russell Neuman, Marion R. Just, and Ann N. Crigler, Holli A. Semetko, Patti M and Valkenburg Valkenburg. The four frames are (a) Human Interest Frame (HIF), (b) Conflict Frame (ConF), and (c) Attribution of Responsibility Frame (AttrF), and (d) Economic Frame (EconF).

Although some minor differences exist, our findings indicate that there are major similarities between the state-owned and private media's coverage of the Tigray-crisis. The selected newspapers framed the federal government and the T.P.L.F in similar fashion. In both the Ethiopian Herald and the Reporter, the main aggressors of the conflict were framed to be high-ranking TPLF officials and their sympathizers. In comparison, Ethiopian Herald and the Reporter’s representation of the two fighting groups and their reasons for the battle were significantly uniform in terms of tools/concepts they implemented to support or delegitimize the two sides. Moreover, researchers have contended that both the positive and the negative roles of media mediation are contingent on the way media covers and frames disputes among the conflicting parties.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. , p. 91
Keywords [en]
TPLF, Tigray-conflict, media framing, framing theory
Keywords [sv]
TPLF, konflikten i Tigray, medieframställning, framing theory
National Category
Political Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-17703Local ID: EIS501OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hv-17703DiVA, id: diva2:1609317
Subject / course
Political science
Educational program
International Programme in Politics and Economics
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2021-11-25 Created: 2021-11-08 Last updated: 2021-11-25Bibliographically approved

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Citation style
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