The Influence Of Media Frames On The Publics Perception Of The 2015-16 Ethiopian Protest

The 2015-16 Ethiopian protest is a series of protests that started in 2015 in Oromia region and then spreadrnin to different parts of the country mainly, Amhara region, Konso zone, and Gedeo zone. During thesernyearlong protests more than hundreds of deaths and property damages had been observed. During protestsrnmedia are believed to play a significant role. They do not provide only information, but “by framing socialrnand political issues in specific ways, they declare the underlying causes and likely consequences of arnproblem and establish criteria for evaluating potential remedies of the problem” (Johnson-Cartee, 2005,rncited in Asmeret, 2013, p. 42). Considering this, examining how EBC framed the 2015-16 Ethiopian protestrnand whether the frames have influenced the publics’ perception of the issue was the main objective of thisrnresearch. To do so, quantitative method of research was employed. Through random sampling techniquern95 sample news were collected for the content analysis using EBC’s Website Archive. For the survey, 300rnsample respondents were selected from three sub-cities of Addis Ababa (Yeka, Bole, and Lideta). With thernhelp of Microsoft Excel, the selected news contents and survey responses were analyzed using frequencyrndistribution and percentage analysis. Finally, comparison of the content analysis and survey analysis resultsrnwas made to come up with the final findings.rnThe results show that the dominant frame that EBC used to structure its news is anti-peace frame in whichrnthe news portrayed the protest as an anti-peace movement planned by anti-peace and anti-developmentrngroups to create chaos and terror. On the other hand, the public framed the protest in terms of its economicrnconsequences. The tone of the news towards the protest was negative while respondents showed positivernattitude towards it. In general, the findings show that there is incongruence between the media frames andrnaudience frames, and the frames were not successful at influencing audiences’ perception regarding thern2015-16 Ethiopian protest. Based on the findings the researcher has recommended EBC to present a morernbalanced news by representing all sides of a story, especially during protest times.

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