Journalism in Transition: Navigating Threats and Resilience in Ethiopia after the 2018 Political Reform

This exploratory study aims to enhance understanding of safety threats faced by journalists and their coping mechanisms by comparing the subjective experiences of safety threats and coping approaches among journalists from diverse media ownership and geographical locations in Ethiopia, particularly following the optimistic political reform on one side and grappling with bloody wars and instabilities on the other side.

Sample

A snowball sampling technique was employed to recruit 24 journalists with firsthand experience of attacks, harassment, and threats.

Main Findings

The findings indicated that journalists encounter a range of physical, psychological, digital, health-related, and economic threats, influenced by factors at the macro, meso, and micro levels. Furthermore, despite the absence of explicitly formulated safety and security guidelines endorsed by media institutions, shaping professional identity and role perception, establishing and maintaining social connections, strengthening religious attachments, normalising harassment and violence, resorting to silence, and, in severe cases, abandoning the profession are the identified mitigation approaches