An Investigation of the Role of Broadcast Media plays in Managing the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ethiopia: A Comparative Analysis of ETV and AHADU TV

Abstract

This study examined the role of broadcast media in managing the COVID-19 pandemic comparing state and private media. For this purpose, two Ethiopian broadcast media, namely ETV from the state and AHADU from the private media, were selected to investigate the medias’ role in combating the pandemic. In so doing, methodological-wise, both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used. For the quantitative part, the medias’ 120 news stories collected from their archives were quantified and analyzed descriptively which include the time frame from March 2020 to August 2020, while to the qualitative, obtained through interview with the journalists and editors assigned to cover and evaluate public health issues including the pandemic were analyzed descriptively through narration. The study samples/participants were selected using purposive sampling. Then, the selected media outlets covered 246 news stories within the given time period. ETV carried 128 news stories on the pandemic out of the total news offered by the media, while AHADU TV broadcasted 118 stories about the pandemic out of the total news presented by the media. Having this, the findings of the study revealed that the coverage and role of both media were high during the first three months since the reporting of the first case in the country. But later, COVID-19 reporting reduced as the country has entered into a political crisis that takes the media attention away from the pandemic. Thus, there was no consistent coverage of the COVID-19 issue in the selected period in both media. Comparatively, the findings revealed that in terms of placements and presenting in a package format of COVID-19 pandemic news stories, ETV was better than AHADU TV was. Furthermore, the most dominant sources used by the two selected media were officials. The result also shows that journalists reported the number of daily confirmed cases directly from the ministry of health, while experiences of infected people, experts' advice, and public views were also included. Besides, journalists and editors stated that reporting the COVID-19 pandemic was more challenging than reporting other issues. As per the findings, it is recommended that the media should improve their readiness to health crisis reporting.