What role does the media play in the Tigray war?

Communications for International Relations

JESSICA CATHERINE TUDOR

Universidad Europea de Madrid | Dra. Ursula Scheiber

state of anarchy. Its origins are deep-rooted in the tension between the Ethiopian government

forces and their allies against the ‘Tigray People's Liberation Front’ (T.P.L.F) who are ruling

part of Ethiopia’s northern region for over a year. The country’s relationship with media can

be described as unhealthy, as for 31 years, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic

Front censored the free press and as a result, the country had foundation blocks of censorship

and surveillance to quash any political discontent that occurred which according to research,

Ethiopia's recent history of limited press freedom has caused long-term damage to the

country's media environment. Many media platforms within the region have struggled to stay

independent due to political sponsorship and governmental ties, which in the context of the

Tigray War, where two opposing sides seek to control the narrative; is impossible to avoid.

This has created scepticism of local media, including outsider commentary whereby even

western narratives have participated in the global discourse on the war. Yet, it mustn’t be

discouraged that, the media, during times of crisis, can also reach a large audience to hold

officials accountable, lay the foundations for democracy and build bridges of understanding

across international boundaries. However, in the context of the Tigray war, the 21st century is

in a constant polarised environment due to the immense usage of all forms of media by both

state and non-state actors to fortify any existing tensions. Thus, in the context of the Tigray

War, the role of the media was to merely act as a weapon of political warfare whereby the

intense competition to influence opinions and destroy oppositions, ultimately fanned the

flames of hatred, violence, death, and attempts of democratic destruction.

Throughout this conflict, media politicisation and propaganda techniques were also used as a

direct tool against their enemies. One perspective is reflected by Far-Left, state-run

newspaper: The Ethiopian herald. The specific article under analysis labels T.P.L.F as
'Terrorists' and claims that their 'strategy of starvation, is a gross violation of the Geneva

Convention' (The Ethiopian Press Agency, 2021). This is a prime example of war propaganda

methods whereby the pairing of black words and the method of "Catching followers", places

a bigger wedge between any chances of political reconciliation. It heavily focuses on

derailing any positive attitudes or support for its opposition by using extremist language

creates the narrative of 'Us vs Them' or 'good vs bad, relating to the 'axis of evil' expression,

influencing the political atmosphere by encouraging a black and white perspective. It

presents legal proof for its subjective assertions, such as referencing the ICC Statute

"deliberately utilising starvation of people as a method of warfare" (The Ethiopian Press

Agency, 2021) to support the view that the T.P.L.F is perpetrating war crimes. This eludes

the effect whereby any doubts of bias suspected from the reader will hopefully be disregarded

as 'concrete facts' from reliable sources which are hard to disprove, disguising black

propaganda as white propaganda. It also targets those from the Global North as it quotes;

'democratic western countries have chosen to keep silent' (The Ethiopian Press Agency,

2021). These assertions of international organisations ignoring the presumed starvation of

citizens in the Tigray region can be categorised as grey propaganda; when targeted at the

right audience, acts as antagonistic psychological warfare against its rivals and could be seen

as a politicisation of humanitarian concerns to gain domestic support. The manipulation of

the direct language highlights how easy it is to dominate the media by exploiting the right

impressions and phrases when standing in an enabling powerful position. Therefore, in this

context, the media’s role is seen as an indispensable political actor whereby the corruption of

truth and manipulation of language is very harmful as it expands the pre-existing polarisation

that already runs through the veins of the war and media outlets.
Many western media outlets, on the other hand, chose a different strategy, eschewing war

propaganda and focusing on political influence in a less deceptive manner. The left-leaning,

Canadian American magazine 'Vice', sought a different approach with its anti-government

stance when reporting on said events. While supporters of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's

attempted to disprove their adversary's accusations, the Tigrayan side focused largely on

generating awareness of the disagreement to dismantle any misconceptions on their side. The

article dictates that instead of discontent of starvation, it appears that in their reality, there is

political freedom and gratification of the T.P.L.F as citizens "feel free and safe and don’t

have to fear for life.” (Kasser, 2021). Through the means of location interviews and the use of

white words such as 'Justice', 'peace and freedom', it seeks to counteract the harsh allegations

and deflect the violence, atrocities, and famine onto the Ethiopian government by adopting a

more fascist model of propaganda to believe their perceived reality of the war. The use of

statements and accounts from the locals gives this media source somewhat more validity in

comparison, portraying aspects of white propaganda by including quotations from conflict

experts who signify the opinion of anti-government spurring on the pro-T.P.L. F claims of

denial in the Addis Ababa government and further proving its creditability. It further

disproves the failure of aid ignorance of western organisations as they have "been severely

restricted from accessing Tigray"(Kasser, 2021) which is a clear criticism of the international

censorship that the war is receiving, painting the government as the instigators of the media

front-line. This prompts an international perspective on the environment as regional media

news can raise scepticism about the tendencies of disinformation and politics to distort from

both sides as well as raise awareness of the conflict in order to achieve worldwide attention as

such a war cannot afford to go under the global radar, thus the psychological method of

perception management is needed to achieve this goal. For this reason, the media’s role can

be seen as constructive in holding the government to account as western media tends to

official, governmental sources for legitimate material when in reality it is an antipode in the

political environment in the case of the Ethiopian government. It further diminishes fake

news which needs retaliation, to enable a platform for those, who due to governmental

censorship are silenced when expressing facts, thus a sense of democracy is conserved.

Another angle that can be used for analysis is from broadcast media. YouTube videos have

been a platform for media outlets to give a visual first-hand view of the Tigray War. Arte. tv,

a left-centre bias European public service channel, provides a documentary on the conflict

using a selection of scenes and portrayal of the situation by appealing to the viewer's

emotions using methods of aestheticisation to trigger fascination rather than deterrence in the

viewer. Adopting the technique of embedded journalism coupled with modern technology,

accessible information can be passed on instantly to other destinations partly those in the west

who see what is filtered through to them. The media source shows the impact of the Tigran

separatists on nearby regions, indirectly showing its support for the Ethiopian government

side; clips of warfare with the people from the city of Abala highlight the societal impact of

the war instead of just the political consequences and the narrator labels the Tigrayan forces

as "the enemy" and records women and children "running for their lives to seek refuge in the

mountains" (Arte. tv, 2022), contradicting the Vice articles' portrayal of celebration of the

T.P.L.F, exhibiting clear signs of distress from the inhabitants of Abala. The media has the

potential to shape the public's views and awareness of an issue, in this case using the

asymmetrical model of public relations, more specifically the Public information model, to

preserve the Addis Ababa government's image, influencing the political landscape through

the method of perception management. Broadcast media does this by compellingly portraying

the issue or emphasising certain facets such as the defenders of Tigray firing the first shots
and "forcing an exodus on innocent people" (Arte. tv, 2022). As a necessary consequence,

according to the above source, the media's role in the Ethiopian conflict serves as a segment

for public opinion and diplomacy by providing them with the collective 21st-century attitude

of domestic anti-war affiliations, pin-pointing the reality of war on their electronic devices or

television screens to encourage a gamut of emotions to interact and immediately respond to

such catastrophic, contentious situations.

During the prolonged crisis, rival narratives designed to affect foreign understanding of the

war were mostly played out on Twitter due to information and access limits. The social media

platform became an umpire for information to reach the international community where both

contending contingents developed campaigns against each other with just the use of hashtags

and 'gaming the algorithm' methods (Wilmot et al., 2021). Tigrayans utilised Twitter to foster

digital activism, while the Ethiopian government and its allies waged counter-information

efforts to discredit Tigrayan activists. The modern ability of social media to distribute copy-

and-paste campaigns with hashtags such as '#StopTheWarOnTigray, #TigrayGenocide

(@SWTigray, 2022), played a huge role in the T.P.L.F campaign in terms of raising

awareness of the situation to the rest of the world. The influence of these hashtags resulted in

the group #IStandWithTigray which was created in the United States and considered one of

the most incentivising activist recruitments in terms of the number of participants. It was not

only hash tagging that boosted the Tigrayan diaspora campaign but also the use of buzzwords

such as 'genocide' to convey and spread, colonising consumer's brains which in effect became

a "flashpoint for pro-government campaigners responding to the accusation". (Wilmot et al.,

2021). On the other end of the spectrum, Ethiopian government entities and non-

governmental support structures developed their initiatives to reach out to overseas

audiences. The far more prominent players of these networks advocate an idea of Ethiopian
"unity" that Abiy championed since establishing the Prosperity Party (Wilmot et al., 2021).

#UnityForEthiopia is a long-running hashtag movement among pro-government groups. As a

result, the Global Ethiopia Advocacy Nexus (GLEAN) was created, as a political organising

tool for those who support the government. It preserves Abiy's status as a deterrent to the

TPLF further influencing the political environment. The pro-government campaign

disseminated media pieces that backed their war narrative, as well as content that falsely

accused Tigrayan activists of being part of a huge TPLF misinformation operation—without

providing evidence—demonstrating the use of black propaganda once more. As a response,

"a two-way relationship between social media initiatives and other media channels arose

rapidly" (Wilmot et al., 2021). As a result, the media's function in this frame of reference is to

provide actors involved, whether regional/international state or non-state actors, with a

structure to ensure that international engagement is productive, whether that is depicted via

lies and deception, fear-mongering, or populism; Twitter was discovered as a loophole

through the extreme regional censorship and communication blackout.

Ultimately, it is apparent that the media played a crucial role in the formation and

preservation of hostility between both sides of the war during the Tigray War, escalating the

endangered political environment. By employing various models and tactics of

indoctrination, as well as war propaganda, both the T.P.L.F. and pro-Ethiopian government

media sources purposely dehumanised each other and maintained a "we versus them"

discourse. The media's critical contribution to the conflict's persistence was the cultivation of

desperation and political urgency. Dramatic propaganda and partisan coverage fostered

public concern about genocide and turmoil, with the help of New Media: and social media,

the conflict was able to be broadcasted and engage externally outside the traditional media

ways of TV and printing on paper. This benefited the Ethiopian administration in collecting a
supporting population on a regional and global scale. The media also served as a direct

weapon of the conflict, communicating with the people of the Global North, who have greater

access to information and more liberal society in terms of media influence and

responsibilities to authorities and media consumers. Essentially, the media had a key role in

fostering and perpetuating enmity within the bipolar rift. It achieved this by exaggerated

reporting, exploitation of ethnic norms, the propagation of communal fear, and the

transmission of disinformation. While awareness of the issue is seen as an advantage in

Western media-dominated society, in a world in which media absorbs virtually every aspect

of daily life, manipulation of such tools by actors on all sides means that state transparency

can also be seen as a failure of media's role in the conflict. False information has transformed

the way that states must gather their information concerning the conflict, and social media

can be unreliable in giving out information to civilians. There are several pressure points,

such as unresolved actual or imagined grievances or injustices, distrust, and perceptions.

These are all excellent grounds for "false news to take root and substantially affect conflict

politics, whether domestically or regionally" (Stafford, 2021). As a result, the potential for

violence is arguably highest in areas where misinformation reigns supreme, which due to

cultural imperialism will forever be a troubling issue in the global South. Consequently,

unless, some form of mediation is found in both the journalistic and political worlds, the

media will continue to be used and mistreated throughout the Tigray War.
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