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This study explores patterns in the portrayal of development issues in the religious media from 1993 to 2021, in an attempt to illustrate the existence of hierarchical representations of development issues using sources, actors, and dominant frames. To this end, we use a quantitative method that considers the development content of two Ethiopian religious magazines: Hamer and Hintset. Our results reveal that across the selected years, the two magazines together presented 685 articles on development (359 the Hamer and 326 in Hintset). We employ data analysis using SPSS software, in which both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques were utilized for data presentation. We determine that political, economic, and natural resource development issues are the most scarcely covered issues as compared to social, moral, peace themes. Economic (chi-square = 5.122, p = 0.024, and p < 0.05), social development issues (chi-square = 6.207, p = 0.018, and p < 0.05) have a relationship with the year of publication in Hintset. Adherents, believers at the grassroots level, were the most frequent sources and story actors in the magazines. This shows participatory development communication was employed in the mediatization of development issues. The frame of development issues did not have a relationship with the year of publication. Finally, Hamer and Hintset included significant coverage of development issues, although development priorities are different. Hamer covered more social development issues whereas Hintset covered more moral development issues. In summary, our findings reveal that the religious media’s representation of development (685 articles, 38.8%) is at a high level in Ethiopia. We, therefore, suggest that local and global development agencies should work with faith-based media as development partners.

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The main intent of this study is to empirically examine media preferences and perceptions of instructors at Bahir Dar University (BDU) in selected Faculties, Colleges and School. The survey method of research was employed to conduct the study, and questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. Proportionate stratified random sampling techniques were used for selecting the study participants. The findings reveal that Bahir Dar University instructors consume news on a daily basis.With regard to media usage, TV stations, radio stations, and websites are the most chosen information source of respondents. Among TV programs, foreign TV news programs are the most viewed by respondents, and ETV has taken the lead as compared to other local TV programs. Concerning radio programs, foreign radio programs are favourites of respondents, and Ethiopia radio programs are their preferences. In addition, instructors use the Internet on daily basis, mainly for searching for information related to their subject areas, sending and receiving e-mails, and searching for daily news.The media content that instructors regularly consume are social issues, sport and politics. Respondents perceive media roles positively, and the highest level of agreement was expressed with the statement that the media help people become better informed and educated. Impartiality & credibility, and independence from political interest are the major criteria for respondents to choose a particular media over another. Finally, age, background, sex, and academic rank are factors that affect respondents' media perception.