Abstract

The purpose of this study is to shed light on how Ethiopian print media organizations communicate poverty. Specifically, it aims to address the framing of poverty in the two English language newspapers (Ethiopian Herald and The Reporter) in Ethiopia. Using framing theory and quantitative content analysis, the researcher analysed articles focussing on poverty from September 1/2015 to August 30/2017. Several articles (95) about poverty were found to have been published in both the Ethiopian Herald and The Reporter newspapers from the sample 384 articles collected for the study. Government officials are the dominant sources (61.1%) used by these newspaper articles. No newspaper article used the poor, the opposition party leaders and the wider community as a source of information. The findings clearly reveal that reporting on poverty is dominated by power holders and the poor are marginalized. Economic perspectives of poverty are dominant, and the newspapers under study primarily used the economic frame (54.7%) over other types of frames. In other words, the newspapers could not communicate the complexity of poverty in the country from a variety of perspectives. In order to avert such “miscommunication about poverty”, the media organizations are recommended to communicate poverty by making the poor at the centre of their reporting and should approach poverty from its multi-dimensional faces, causes and consequences.

摘要

这项研究的目的是阐明埃塞俄比亚印刷媒体组织如何传播贫困。具体而言，它旨在解决埃塞俄比亚两份英文报纸（《埃塞俄比亚先驱报》和《记者》）对贫困的描述。使用框架理论和定量内容分析，研究人员分析了 2015 年 9 月 1 日至 2017 年 8 月 30 日期间关注贫困的文章。从为该研究收集的 384 篇样本文章中，发现有几篇关于贫困的文章（95 篇）已发表在《埃塞俄比亚先驱报》和《记者报》上。政府官员是这些报纸文章使用的主要来源 (61.1%)。没有报纸文章使用穷人、反对党领导人和更广泛的社区作为信息来源。调查结果清楚地表明，关于贫困的报道由掌权者主导，而穷人则被边缘化。贫困的经济视角占主导地位，被研究的报纸主要使用经济框架（54.7%）而不是其他类型的框架。换言之，报纸无法从多种角度传达该国贫困的复杂性。为避免出现这种“对贫困的误传”，建议媒体传播贫困，以贫困为报道中心，从贫困的多维度、多维度、多维度看待贫困。报纸无法从各种角度传达该国贫困的复杂性。为避免出现这种“对贫困的误传”，建议媒体传播贫困，以贫困为报道中心，从贫困的多维度、多维度、多维度看待贫困。报纸无法从各种角度传达该国贫困的复杂性。为避免出现这种“对贫困的误传”，建议媒体传播贫困，以贫困为报道中心，从贫困的多维度、多维度、多维度看待贫困。