The Role of Mass Media in Promoting Government Responsiveness in Ethiopia: Challenges and the way forward

Abstract

The Purpose of this study was to assess the roles of selected public and private mass media in promoting government responsiveness and the challenges faced when they disseminated information related to government responsiveness. The study was conducted in four selected public and private media sectors. Ana broadcasting corporate and reporter newspaper from private, and Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation and Addis Zemen newspaper from publicly owned media institutions. The study employed qualitative and quantitative research approach. Quantitative data were collected through questionnaire and qualitative data were collected through in-depth interview. Stratified multi stage sampling followed by proportional and random sampling techniques was used to select the 179 survey journalists and purposive sampling technique was applied to select interviewee. The study revealed that media in Ethiopia play their own role in bringing a variety of government responsiveness issues to the attention of the public and the government. The roles of the Ethiopian media as a watch dog and a civic forum role failed in the range of low level while the agenda setting role was found at a moderate level. The challenges faced the media in reporting government responsiveness in Ethiopia is associated with political, institutional, legal, skill and capacity of the journalists.