From Multidimensional Safety to Risk Ecologies: A Four-Coordinate Analysis of Journalist Exposure in Ethiopia, 1992–2024
Published in Journalism Practice, 2026
This article examines how journalist risk in Ethiopia changed across political eras between 1992 and 2024. It combines a 32-year events dataset with 17 in-depth interviews to analyze how state authorities, non-state actors, media organizations, and platform systems jointly shape exposure.
The study finds that annual incidents nearly double after 2018, while coercion expands beyond arrest and prosecution to include administrative controls such as licensing suspensions and bans. Exposure clusters around repeat-player outlets and highly visible individuals, while platform dynamics can amplify both reputational and custodial risk.
The article advances a Four-Coordinate framework that cross-classifies political environment (democratic to authoritarian) and professional orientation (verification-led to advocacy-partisan). This shifts journalist-safety analysis from multidimensional measurement toward relational mapping of exposure, constraint, and survival.
Recommended citation: Chala, Endalkachew H. (2026). "From Multidimensional Safety to Risk Ecologies: A Four-Coordinate Analysis of Journalist Exposure in Ethiopia, 1992–2024." Journalism Practice, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2026.2637127
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