Captured Voices: Ethiopian Media as Tools of Information Warfare in the Ethiopia-Tigray War

During the Ethiopia–Tigray war (November 2020 to November 2022), state-owned and diasporaaligned broadcasters played a pivotal role in shaping public perceptions of the conflict, which resulted in significant civilian casualties, displacement, and humanitarian suffering. Comparative research on Rwanda and the Nigerian–Biafran War demonstrates that captured broadcast media can serve not only as sources of biased reporting but also as active instruments of atrocity. This context raises urgent questions regarding the Ethiopian case. This study investigates how three Ethiopian outlets, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), Ethiopian Satellite Television (ESAT), and the Amhara Media Agency (AMMA) transitioned from nominally independent journalistic organizations to instruments of information warfare during the conflict, and identifies the discursive and structural mechanisms that facilitated this transformation. Employing a qualitative research design, the study integrates critical discourse analysis of 150 purposively sampled broadcast and archived items (50 per outlet) spanning the entire war period, 24 semistructured key informant interviews (eight per outlet) conducted with journalists, editors, and media professionals, and thematic analysis of these data. The analysis reveals five recurring dimensions of captured broadcasting: the construction of an internal enemy; nationalist mobilization and the legitimization of violence; the progressive erasure of Tigrayan civilian voices; strategic silence regarding humanitarian abuses and famine; and coordinated cross-outlet amplification. These patterns closely parallel media mechanisms documented in Rwanda’s RTLM broadcasts and Nigeria’s Biafra-era radio propaganda. The findings suggest that the phenomenon observed was not merely a failure of journalistic standards but rather a structural capture rooted in ownership, financing, and ideological alignment. This underscores the need for institutional accountability, structural media reform, and the inclusion of media actors in post-conflict transitional justice processes.