A Comparative Analysis of Media‟s Framing of War time Crisis: the Case of Tigray and Amhara Televisions

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to analysis in a comparative perspective how the media in Ethiopia framed wartime crises. The study identified and purposefully selected two state-owned media: Amhara Television and Tigray Television in order to analyze how these media outlets used frames in their news to report the war held between the federal government and TPLF. The news stories were found from Amhara and Tigray Television websites within a selected timeframe between November 04, 2020 and December 04, 2020. A total of 108 news stories were used in the study, 56 news stories from TTV, and 52 news stories from ATV. Framing theory were employed as theoretical framework for the research. The research was conducted through qualitative approach; content analysis was used to address the research objective to analyze the contents of the news. To portray the framing used in the television stations, the researcher attempted to analyze the dominant frames of the news and sources of information used in the selected media outlets. The major findings indicate that the generic framing were used dominantly in both media outlets by employing different narratives to frame the war between TPLF and the federal government troops. In this regard, ATV dominantly used human-interest frame while TTV used conflict frame in its war reporting. ATV used conflict frame as the fourth dominant frame whereas TTV used human-interest frame as the second dominant frame in their war news reporting. Attribution of responsibility was the second dominant frame used in ATV while Tigray Television used attribution of responsibility as the third dominant frame. ATV used morality frame as the fifth dominant frame whereas TTV used morality frame as the fourth dominant frame. Peace frame was the third dominant frame used in ATV‟s news stories. However, TTV ignored this frame in its news stories. Different media sources, journalists, political and international actors may have various interpretations of the war. Based on this, both media outlets have relied on different sources of information in their news reports. Amhara Television mostly used state of emergency fact checking as sources of information. TTV largely used sources that came from Tigray Region President Office and Tigray National Defense Force as dominant news sources. Both media used local government communication offices, journalists, other media, and interviews with scholars, civil society and religious institutions as sources of information to report the war. The findings show that both of the selected media outlets gave a significant coverage for the war during the selected time frame, but both framed the news in different perspectives.