Reporting assassinations in the Ethiopian press

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing the reporting of assassinations in the Ethiopian press from a discourse analytical perspective. The study attempted to answer three questions: 1) How are assassinations represented in the press? 2) What identities are set up for those involved in the assassinations? And, finally, how is meaning communicated in various discursive structures and communicative events? To that end, the study employed Jeffrie’s critical stylistics as an analytical framework within a qualitative design. The data were collected from five Ethiopian newspapers that were selected purposively in line with predetermined criteria. A corpus of 102 media stories that were published from June 2018 to June 2020 was setup. The findings show that each outlet reported the incidents synonymously, emphasizing a scapegoating process that could ideologically reaffirm the dominant political discourse. In doing so, four naming and labeling strategies were identified: lionizing (making the dead a hero), blaming and demonizing, victimizing (making the dead innocent and martyrs), and ethnification (connecting both the victims and offenders to their ethnic belongings). Polarized representations of actions, space, time, and society were evident in the selected stories. The government, together with its different organs and affiliates, was used as the sole and primary source of information. The voices of the government on the incidents were reported as widely accepted facts, as evidenced by the blurred line between direct and indirect speeches. This in turn helped to reaffirm the existing dominant political discourse – the status quo.