Téwodros W Workneh
Biographic Data
| ID | 6211101 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Téwodros W Workneh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Téwodros W |
| FAMILY NAME | Workneh |
| SIGNATURE | WORKNEH T W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Kent State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8301-2696 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 12 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Faith, displacement, and intergenerational relationships
This qualitative study applies communication accommodation theory (CAT) to examine intergenerational communicative dynamics between first- and second-generation Ethiopian Americans in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church diaspora. Based on ethnographic observations and interviews, it explores how parents and adult children negotiate religious and hybrid identities through embodied liturgical practices. The study expands CAT by emphasizing indig…
Internet shutdowns in Ethiopia
This study examines Ethiopia’s Internet shutdowns between 2005 and 2024, analyzing their frequency, motives, and socio-political impact within the discursive frames of digital sovereignty and Internet governance. By adopting a mixed-methods approach of quantitative trend analysis and secondary qualitative research of government narratives, we identify four different types of shutdowns including Internet blackouts, network shutdowns, platform bloc…
The Construction of Human Rights Narratives in the 2022 World Cup
This study examines the tensions in the representations of human rights discourses in the context of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Primarily drawing from postcolonial approaches, it investigates how the construction of human rights narratives were deployed by two leading publications representing US ( The New York Times —NYT) and Qatari ( Gulf Times —GT) viewpoints. In doing so, the study probes the representation and self-portrayal of Qatari…
Pandemic politics and Africa
In addition to the devastating loss of lives, the harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to individuals and communities around the world has caused seismic disruptions in economic, social and interpersonal relationships. The pandemic has affected international diplomatic relations as well by amplifying existing geopolitical tensions. By situating discourses of Africa and Africans within global ferments of pandemic politics, this study interrogates …
Overseas media, homeland audiences
Historically, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s (FDRE) media environment faced a state apparatus that had been hostile to journalism practice. In particular, government-sponsored intimidation, jailing, and censorship of journalists paralyzed non-state journalistic institutions. With the political establishment’s hostility toward non-state press incapacitating credible journalism internally, foreign-based international and diasporic ne…
Teaching Global Communication During Covid-19
Higher education institutions in the United States resorted to remote instruction after the disruption caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The disjointed nature of this transition of managing the academic crisis needs to be critically engaged. By examining the experiences of global communication faculty at a midsize Midwestern university, this study attempts to reflect on the circumstances, challenges, and some unexpected outcomes of t…
Social media, protest, & outrage communication in Ethiopia
In 2018, Ethiopia experienced a tectonic political shift following the culmination of years of public outcry against the now defunct ruling party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Protest groups, predominantly organized along ethnic identification, have used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to disseminate strategies, recruit members, and galvanize support. Anchored on theories of collective identi…
From State Repression to Fear of non-state Actors
Non-state media journalists in Ethiopia traditionally faced safety threats emanating from state-sponsored attacks and punitive legal frameworks. Recently, however, state hostility is being replaced by non-state actors’ aggression against journalists. By framing emerging threats of reporters’ safety in Ethiopia within normative vis-à-vis alternative debates of journalism practice in the context of transitional, unstable, pluralistic-partizan socie…
Beyond state vanguardism and market fundamentalism
Despite external and domestic pressures seeking liberalization and privatization, Ethiopia, until recently, maintained a highly centralized, vertically integrated, single service provider model of state monopoly of telecommunications. However, in 2019, the Ethiopian House of Representatives passed the Communications Service Proclamation, a historic bill that deregulated the Ethiopian telecommunications sector, paving the way for domestic and fore…
Ethiopia’s Hate Speech Predicament
After waves of public protests that denounced long-time ruling party the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, Ethiopia has experienced a political transformation that, among other things, lifted restrictions on political speech and freed prisoners of conscience. While the transformative potential of social networking sites across the nation in keeping the momentum of the protests was evident, the rise of displacements, killings, and…
Exotica Africana
The marked reluctance to incorporate African agency in African image-making in the West quite predictably brought about flat and simplistic caricatures of the continent and its peoples. With the aim of interrogating continuity and change in the representation of Africa, this paper explores African exoticism in Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Framed within a critical cultural/postcolonial perspective that anchors discourses of …
Journalistic Autonomy in Voice of America’s Amharic Service
Established in 1982, the Voice of America (VOA) Amharic Service became one of the most popular news outlets for Ethiopians in Ethiopia and Ethiopian diaspora communities across the world. Angered by the Service’s coverage of human rights abuses, bad governance, and other issues of public interest, Ethiopia’s ruling party made the discontinuation of the Service one of the top priorities of its diplomatic ties with the United States. This study exa…
Journalism Education Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa
Recent trends in journalism education in Africa indicate a substantial increase both in scope and specialisation. While this increase is usually attributed to higher education institutions’ response to market trends, certain journalism education programmes are born out of development assistance initiatives that envision nation-building imperatives of democratisation and development. The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) is nota…
State monopoly of telecommunications in Ethiopia
A rare breed in the era of deregulation, Ethiopia’s state-controlled telecommunications sector has been a source of intense debate involving domestic and international stakeholders. Based on analysis of interviews, this essay explores the Ethiopian state’s rationales for state monopoly of telecommunications within a developmental-neopatrimonial state framework. Despite external and internal pressures to deregulate the sector, EPRDF considers stat…
Digital cleansing? A look into state-sponsored policing of Ethiopian networked communities
In June 2015, the National Election Board of Ethiopia announced that the incumbent Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its affiliates had won 100 per cent of the House of People's Representatives seats. The results have extended Ethiopia's anocratic one-party rule since the EPRDF ousted the former military dictatorship through armed struggle in 1991. Despite earlier promises of democratic reform, the EPRDF has increasing…
From State Repression to Fear of non-state Actors
Non-state media journalists in Ethiopia traditionally faced safety threats emanating from state-sponsored attacks and punitive legal frameworks. Recently, however, state hostility is being replaced by non-state actors’ aggression against journalists. By framing emerging threats of reporters’ safety in Ethiopia within normative vis-à-vis alternative debates of journalism practice in the context of transitional, unstable, pluralistic-partizan socie…
Exotica Africana
The marked reluctance to incorporate African agency in African image-making in the West quite predictably brought about flat and simplistic caricatures of the continent and its peoples. With the aim of interrogating continuity and change in the representation of Africa, this paper explores African exoticism in Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Framed within a critical cultural/postcolonial perspective that anchors discourses of …
The Construction of Human Rights Narratives in the 2022 World Cup
This study examines the tensions in the representations of human rights discourses in the context of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Primarily drawing from postcolonial approaches, it investigates how the construction of human rights narratives were deployed by two leading publications representing US ( The New York Times —NYT) and Qatari ( Gulf Times —GT) viewpoints. In doing so, the study probes the representation and self-portrayal of Qatari…
Journalistic Autonomy in Voice of America’s Amharic Service
Established in 1982, the Voice of America (VOA) Amharic Service became one of the most popular news outlets for Ethiopians in Ethiopia and Ethiopian diaspora communities across the world. Angered by the Service’s coverage of human rights abuses, bad governance, and other issues of public interest, Ethiopia’s ruling party made the discontinuation of the Service one of the top priorities of its diplomatic ties with the United States. This study exa…
Pandemic politics and Africa
In addition to the devastating loss of lives, the harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to individuals and communities around the world has caused seismic disruptions in economic, social and interpersonal relationships. The pandemic has affected international diplomatic relations as well by amplifying existing geopolitical tensions. By situating discourses of Africa and Africans within global ferments of pandemic politics, this study interrogates …
Digital cleansing? A look into state-sponsored policing of Ethiopian networked communities
In June 2015, the National Election Board of Ethiopia announced that the incumbent Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its affiliates had won 100 per cent of the House of People's Representatives seats. The results have extended Ethiopia's anocratic one-party rule since the EPRDF ousted the former military dictatorship through armed struggle in 1991. Despite earlier promises of democratic reform, the EPRDF has increasing…
Journalism Education Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa
Recent trends in journalism education in Africa indicate a substantial increase both in scope and specialisation. While this increase is usually attributed to higher education institutions’ response to market trends, certain journalism education programmes are born out of development assistance initiatives that envision nation-building imperatives of democratisation and development. The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) is nota…
State monopoly of telecommunications in Ethiopia
A rare breed in the era of deregulation, Ethiopia’s state-controlled telecommunications sector has been a source of intense debate involving domestic and international stakeholders. Based on analysis of interviews, this essay explores the Ethiopian state’s rationales for state monopoly of telecommunications within a developmental-neopatrimonial state framework. Despite external and internal pressures to deregulate the sector, EPRDF considers stat…
Ethiopia’s Hate Speech Predicament
After waves of public protests that denounced long-time ruling party the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, Ethiopia has experienced a political transformation that, among other things, lifted restrictions on political speech and freed prisoners of conscience. While the transformative potential of social networking sites across the nation in keeping the momentum of the protests was evident, the rise of displacements, killings, and…
Exotica Africana
The marked reluctance to incorporate African agency in African image-making in the West quite predictably brought about flat and simplistic caricatures of the continent and its peoples. With the aim of interrogating continuity and change in the representation of Africa, this paper explores African exoticism in Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. Framed within a critical cultural/postcolonial perspective that anchors discourses of …
Journalistic Autonomy in Voice of America’s Amharic Service
Established in 1982, the Voice of America (VOA) Amharic Service became one of the most popular news outlets for Ethiopians in Ethiopia and Ethiopian diaspora communities across the world. Angered by the Service’s coverage of human rights abuses, bad governance, and other issues of public interest, Ethiopia’s ruling party made the discontinuation of the Service one of the top priorities of its diplomatic ties with the United States. This study exa…
Beyond state vanguardism and market fundamentalism
Despite external and domestic pressures seeking liberalization and privatization, Ethiopia, until recently, maintained a highly centralized, vertically integrated, single service provider model of state monopoly of telecommunications. However, in 2019, the Ethiopian House of Representatives passed the Communications Service Proclamation, a historic bill that deregulated the Ethiopian telecommunications sector, paving the way for domestic and fore…
Teaching Global Communication During Covid-19
Higher education institutions in the United States resorted to remote instruction after the disruption caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The disjointed nature of this transition of managing the academic crisis needs to be critically engaged. By examining the experiences of global communication faculty at a midsize Midwestern university, this study attempts to reflect on the circumstances, challenges, and some unexpected outcomes of t…
Social media, protest, & outrage communication in Ethiopia
In 2018, Ethiopia experienced a tectonic political shift following the culmination of years of public outcry against the now defunct ruling party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Protest groups, predominantly organized along ethnic identification, have used social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to disseminate strategies, recruit members, and galvanize support. Anchored on theories of collective identi…
From State Repression to Fear of non-state Actors
Non-state media journalists in Ethiopia traditionally faced safety threats emanating from state-sponsored attacks and punitive legal frameworks. Recently, however, state hostility is being replaced by non-state actors’ aggression against journalists. By framing emerging threats of reporters’ safety in Ethiopia within normative vis-à-vis alternative debates of journalism practice in the context of transitional, unstable, pluralistic-partizan socie…
Pandemic politics and Africa
In addition to the devastating loss of lives, the harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to individuals and communities around the world has caused seismic disruptions in economic, social and interpersonal relationships. The pandemic has affected international diplomatic relations as well by amplifying existing geopolitical tensions. By situating discourses of Africa and Africans within global ferments of pandemic politics, this study interrogates …
Overseas media, homeland audiences
Historically, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s (FDRE) media environment faced a state apparatus that had been hostile to journalism practice. In particular, government-sponsored intimidation, jailing, and censorship of journalists paralyzed non-state journalistic institutions. With the political establishment’s hostility toward non-state press incapacitating credible journalism internally, foreign-based international and diasporic ne…
The Construction of Human Rights Narratives in the 2022 World Cup
This study examines the tensions in the representations of human rights discourses in the context of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Primarily drawing from postcolonial approaches, it investigates how the construction of human rights narratives were deployed by two leading publications representing US ( The New York Times —NYT) and Qatari ( Gulf Times —GT) viewpoints. In doing so, the study probes the representation and self-portrayal of Qatari…
Internet shutdowns in Ethiopia
This study examines Ethiopia’s Internet shutdowns between 2005 and 2024, analyzing their frequency, motives, and socio-political impact within the discursive frames of digital sovereignty and Internet governance. By adopting a mixed-methods approach of quantitative trend analysis and secondary qualitative research of government narratives, we identify four different types of shutdowns including Internet blackouts, network shutdowns, platform bloc…
Faith, displacement, and intergenerational relationships
This qualitative study applies communication accommodation theory (CAT) to examine intergenerational communicative dynamics between first- and second-generation Ethiopian Americans in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church diaspora. Based on ethnographic observations and interviews, it explores how parents and adult children negotiate religious and hybrid identities through embodied liturgical practices. The study expands CAT by emphasizing indig…
Political science (12 works) · Law (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Politics (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Media studies (6 works) · Media Studies and Communication (4 works) · Public relations (4 works) · Social Media and Politics (4 works) · Business (3 works)