Abstract
ABSTRACT The study aims to assess the interplay between ethnic identity politics and editorial independence of the six purposively selected ethnic-based Ethiopian media through the context of conflict reporting. In so doing, a total of 188 conflict news stories were collected from the selected television outlets and subjected to quantitative content analysis. Descriptive statistics of percentage and a non-parametric test of Chi-square were computed to see the extent and distributions of different variables across categories, and interpretations were mainly made in light of the constructs of social identity theory and hierarchy of influences model. Journalism of activism has become an emerging trend so that the ethnic orientation seems to overwhelm the ethical underpinnings. Ethnically affiliated polarization and political parallelism seem to prevail in the media landscape. Journalists’ professional identity appears to be compromised at the expense of ethnic solidarity. This was intensified by prominence by placement, bias by omission and source selection bias, in-group favoritism and out-group derogation, strategic alliance to other groups and out lauding exclusive victimization in reporting conflicts.
Published Version
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