Mass Media Success and Failure in the Horn of Africa (HoA): A Preliminary Review of the Cases from Ethiopia and Sudan

As many African countries are liberalising, deregulating their economies and allowing more freedom, many others are on the opposite side - restricting and showing a digressing media atmosphere. The aim of this study is to examine why the media in two Eastern African countries Sudan and Ethiopia fail or have failed in the past decade and how the international community could assist their sustainability. Both countries have strong state owned media but very weak private (free) press. In the overarching study, archival and official national data analysis and semi-structured interviews are conducted to collect empirical data from each country. Theoretically, as there is no media related theory available to study mass media sustainability, theories from economics such as Systems Theory and the Four Capital Model have been consulted. The study has found that due to “contextual” reasons most media outlets fail in the countries and shows what the international community could do to assist sustainability in the countries.