The Perplexity of Scholars: Media Relationships in Ethiopia: Exploring the Implications of the Democratization of the Nation

Abstract

The role of media in democracy has been understood in terms of providing the general public with information on what the voters have for the public, how politicians behave, and how citizens increase their political participation. Scholars’ media participation has been insignificant in the democratization process of Ethiopia despite its divergent interpretations in previous studies. Scholars’ media participation in Ethiopia highly waning and waxing from time to time. Therefore, the objective of this exploratory research is to examine the intricate relationships between scholars and media in Ethiopia. The research is mainly qualitative: Sixteen key informants were interviewed from both media people and public scholars. And three FGDs were held with journalists and public-scholars. The findings have shown that the scholar-media relationship has been weakening because of the following major factors: media credibility went down, there are abusive uses of scholars’ opinions and expressions by the media, there is intolerance of criticisms by the government, and thus polarized political ideologies have been practiced by many scholars and the media.