Ethics of Television Advertisements: The Case of Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporate Amharic

Abstract

In today's world, advertising, using media as its vehicle, is a pervasive and powerful force in shaping people’s attitude and behavior. These days, the common complaint about Ethiopian Television is its gradual decline in the quality of its programs. Therefore, the main focus of this study was on the ethics of Ethiopia Television advertisement and audience reaction towards its programs. In doing so, the study has tried to identify the existing advertisement ethical practice of Ethiopia Broadcasting Corporate television programs and advertisements considered ethical by the society. The study employed descriptive design involving both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The target population of the study was EBC television viewers found in Addis Ababa. Due to difficult nature to determine sample size of the EBC viewers, the student researcher used non probability sampling particularly convenience sampling technique. Quantitative data were collected from viewers of EBC through close ended questions and qualitative data were collected through interview with marketing manager and employees of the department within the corporation. In the study, the data which were gathered through document review were presented in the forms of description and the responses of the audience were presented in the form of the tables and charts which include frequencies and percentages. The data were obtained through questionnaire, and they were analysed using descriptive statistics SPSS software. The data gathered through open ended questionnaire and interview were analysed qualitatively. Accordingly, the research answered four basic research questions. The findings of the study revealed that EBC advertisements transmitted on ETV misled viewers, provided false information about the products or service that were to be render, and created confusion over product distinctions, disappointed viewers with exaggerated claims, encouraged the use of harmful products such as alcohol, and advertisements of contraceptive products were offensive/irritating. Based on these indications, the study concluded that there were problems of ethics on EBC advertisements. Finally, it recommended that great attention should be given for improving the advertisement practices of EBC.