SOCIAL MEDIA, PUBLIC SPHERE AND THE POLITICAL TRAGEDIES OF CONTEMPORARY ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Ethiopia since 1991 G.C has been adopting democracy and federalism as constitutional frameworks of the state. The core objective to maintain the two political cultures is the presence of multiple cultural identities within the state and the actual need for an intersubjective discussion on the public sphere. And one of the major areas of public sphere is the social media. As per the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia citizens of Ethiopia have the democratic rights of Thoughts, Opinion and Expression (Art. 29), so in social media it is natural to expect that individuals talk on the different affairs of the state ‘freely’. Basically the social media is serving as an instrument in maintaining discursive talk among individuals. However, it has been also producing considerable social turmoil across the world. The same is what is encountering in Ethiopia today; on the one hand, social media as a communication platform allows people to communicate effectively with sharing alternative views, attitudes and forming democratic consensus on the social anomalies and responses, and on the other hand, the media is the sphere of communicative maladjustment where misunderstanding, extremism and miscommunication is producing. In the present Ethiopian context the basic source of communication and miscommunication in the social media is the ‘pluriversal identities’ of the cultural horizon. Taking this as a crucial object, this article will discuss the connection between democracy, federalism and social media in the current Ethiopia. On the top of this, the study aims at exploring the following issues: the social media sphere in Ethiopia, the modern and postmodern challenges of social media in Ethiopia and alternatives for the social media reconstruction.