Assessing The Coverage Of Science And Technology News In Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation The Case Of Fm Addis 97.1 Addis Mereja Daily News Prime Time
The main objective of this research was to assess the coverage of science and technology rnissues in FM Addis 97.1, particularly on „Addis Mereja‟ daily news prime time. For avoiding rnthe inherent weakens of the individual methods, the researcher used a mixed methodology; rnquantitative and qualitative. Content analysis and in-depth interviews were used as data rncollection methods using the purposive sampling technique; to get an in-depth understanding rnof the issue from the appropriate source of information. The finding showed that FM Addis rn97.1 gives less attention to Science and Technology news compared with others. The result of rnthe content analysis indicated that only 3.63% of news was science and technology issues; rnout of 2,202 from December 1, 2018, up to May 30, 2019; on the other hand, national and rninternational current affairs (36.7%) and sport (28.2%) obtained high coverage. The result rnof the in-depth interview also indicated that FM Addis 97.1 was not covering science and rntechnology news adequately because the station was not allocated enough time, and was not rndone in the required detail. In general, the results confirmed that science and technology rnnews was given less coverage by FM Addis 97.1. The origins of most science and technology rnnews were foreign 83.75%, and only 16.25% found to be local. The finding of the in-depth rninterview also showed that most of the news was of foreign origin because there was limited rnaccess to science and technology information at local. The knowledge of FM Addis 97.1 rnjournalists in science and technology was less. Also, the station lacks vibrant media policy, rnstrategy, and guidelines to cover science and technology news. The media's weak relation rnwith scientists and science organizations was also the bottleneck problem for science and rntechnology news. Finally, the study recommended interested researchers use this study as a rnbaseline to investigate the relationship between media and science and technology.