Text by Luca de Bruls, DDMAC, University of Leiden
The DDMAC research project proudly presents you with the visual results of a field trip to Ethiopia. During the project group’s stay in Addis Ababa, documentary filmmaker Loretta van der Horst shot short documentaries to make insightful how three Ethiopians deal with the information disorder in times of surging conflict. The short documentaries tell the stories of Samuel Getachew, Rohobot Ayalew, and Elham Ali Mehammed, who as journalists and fact-checkers combat the growing amount of false information in unique ways.
The video about Samuel Getachew shows the importance of social media in the Ethiopian conflict. As it becomes clear that the safety of journalists is under attack, the local producer for Al-Jazeera demonstrates how contending ethnic and political groups and a disparity in regional media coverage further excaberates the information disorder.