Gebreselassie, Stalin (2014) The Framing of Women’s Rights in the Weekly Amharic Women’s Program in Ethiopian Television (Sep. 2012-Aug. 2013). Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.
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Abstract
Ethiopian women have not been enjoying their fundamental human rights as equal as men for centuries. This gender inequality has been due to the deep-rooted religious, social and cultural biases existing in the society. This led to a wide range of injustice against women over the past years. Gradually, however, the country has adopted various international and continental conventions on women’s rights and incorporated them as part of the law of the land. In addition to the existing laws that guarantee women’s rights in the country, the media is a powerful and key instrument to influence those who have little concern about women’s rights so that these rights could be better promoted and protected. This research was conducted to examine how the Ethiopian Television Weekly Amharic Women’s Program framed women’s rights issues during September 2012 to August 2013 (2005 Ethiopian Calendar). Even though the issue of women’s rights is covered in news, special programs, etc. of Ethiopian Television, the researcher purposefully selected the weekly women’s program for it mainly focuses on women. To begin with, the study shows that the issue of women’s rights in Ethiopia is not mentioned specifically in the editorial policy guidelines of the media house. In terms of coverage, the weekly program gave more emphasis to domestic women’s rights than similar global issues. The focal theme of the program was model/successful women (similar to the ‘leading women’ monthly program on CNN) but lacks depth of presentation whereas, the right to education got more emphasis realizing that once women are educated and empowered, ultimately the other rights could be realized with little difficulty. On the contrary, the weekly program did little in showing legal gaps existing about women’s rights in the country (only in 1 out of 45 editions). It would have been crucial if the other women’s rights as well could have been fairly entertained. The study also showed that in most cases, government officials are those who speak for women whilst community members speak little on the subject (only in 1 out of 45 editions). In terms of the media frames employed in the program, prognostic and economic frames were dominant unlike in the US where conflict framing is dominant. The morality frame was totally ignored in the program and literature shows the same in US media. In conclusion, the researcher believes the fact that the program focused on the right to education and economic framing is good and many feminists support it. However, the weekly show did not use variety of sources appropriately, lacks in-depth understanding of women’s rights, lacks well-framed analysis, and the producers need further training to enable them produce with good knowledge of the subject matter.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | J Political Science > JA Political science (General) |
| Divisions: | Africana |
| Depositing User: | Emmanuel Ndorimana |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Jun 2018 14:09 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Jun 2018 14:09 |
| URI: | http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/4701 |
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