The data collection was done in two major categories. The first category used interview‘s to collect the necessary data on journalists take on the existing press environment in their country. The interview was done with journalists on the domestic press and the cyberspace. The interview was conducted in the assumption that journalists‘ take on the existing press conditions in the country in relation to the digital era‘s opportunities would be significantly important to answer the research questions of this research project. Therefore the interview questions were designed in such a way that could help find out journalists views, reactions and suggestions on the political environment they are working in relation to the impact of online journalism on the existing environment of the press freedom in Ethiopia.
The second category can be taken as a Ready Made data where texts, audios and video materials were gathered that are believed to have their major focus on the problem being investigated. These groups of data is mainly taken from the researchers archive collected over the last two years for the purpose of another research project meant for studying media ethics. It did also include recent materials that are collected while working on this paper. A one month consecutive
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publications of online news websites was also made to be used as data for the analyses purposes in line with the stated research questions.
You would find lists of materials consulted and used as empirical evidence in the following section where sampling is discussed.
Sampling
In the process of gathering data through the interview the major criteria put in place to choose who to interview was the position of the journalist in the media institution where the journalist is working. It is, as it is the case in many parts of the world, the senior journalists in the decision making body of the profession like the editor in chief who are more susceptible to influences of political environments in the nation than any other journalist in the hierarchy of responsibilities in the profession. Senior level journalists with a decision making power on the final version of stories and/or articles published are taken as samples of the research subjects for this research. The second criterion for the interview focuses on which media to choose the journalists from. Here purposive sampling techniques have been employed and two popular major domestic private press products and four from the online news media outlets based abroad have been taken as subjects. The number does not seem to be balanced because actual numbers of domestic press products who uses the online media outlets are by far lower than the Diaspora based online outlets. In addition the trend for using online journalism in finding a way to escape from the political influences is mainly concentrated in the Diaspora based online news outlets. Therefore for the purpose of getting a better picture for the problem under investigation it was decided to take more samples from the Diaspora based online media outlets. Allegations on the online media outlet in taking sides either for or against the government have also be taken into account to include websites from both sides of which they are alleged to favor to. The leading websites are identified by their number of readers which is rated by the popular web based rating company named Alexa.com. According to Alexa.com 2010 rankings the two domestic press products with an online extensions of their publications and the four leading Diaspora based online media outlets among the leading 20 purposively selected as samples of this study are;
1 Ethiopianreporter.com 2 Addisfortune.com 3 Ethiomedia.com 4 Ethiopianreview.com 5 Aigaforum.com 6 Ethiopiafirst.com.
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The above listed websites are not only serving as subjects of this study to take journalists for the interview but also as subjects for their contents to be analyzed for their forms and formats in making use of the web to exercise freedom of the press.
The second group of data was taken from secondary sources. They are secondary in a sense that they are not necessarily, though there are many of them, directly organized and collected for the purpose of this paper. Otherwise these texts, audios and video materials could be considered as direct sources for their content is directly related to the problem under investigation. And the major criterion of the sampling is to gather such data which is directly focusing on either the environment for press freedom in the nation and/or Ethiopian online journalism. These materials mainly include journalists especially senior editor level journalists take on issues of press freedom in the nation and way outs to fight it, universally recognized press releases and reports on the country‘s performance of freedom of expression in general and press freedom in particular, panel discussion organized by radio stations and/or nongovernmental association on the same issues, laws and regulations of the country with major focus on freedom of expression and practices of journalism in the nation, articles written by scholars and various sections of the societies on the matter under discussion and published on various newspapers and editorials by various media outlets written on issues of press freedom in the nation and expressing their stands on each case. These materials include data gathered over the period of the last two years for the purpose of my research project aiming at studying media ethics.