Media representations of Ethiopian Muslims civil rights movement

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to describe how the pro and anti-government media represented the civil rights movement of Ethiopian Muslims against religious indoctrination. Four online Media, two pro-government Media, and two opposition Media were purposefully selected to achieve this objective. The news and articles presented from April 2012 to March 2013 were rigorously analyzed using steps suggested by Johnson and Christensen (2004). The qualitative analysis resulted in three major themes and six subcategories under the major themes. The three major themes include the Aim of the Muslim civil rights movement, Government interference in religious affairs, and the Representation of Leaders of the Ethiopian Muslims Civil rights Movement. As hypothesized at the onset of the study, the two groups of online Media selected for analysis represented the Ethiopian Muslim civil rights movement in highly different ways. Generally speaking, the selected pro-government media has negatively represented the movement, whereas the opposition media exhibited positive representation.

Keywords

• The Ethiopian Muslims civil rights movement
• Media representation
• Al-Ahbash

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