Development and validation of a hybrid measure of organisational communication satisfaction

The purpose of the study was to identify and transform, as necessary, constructs of communication satisfaction and to develop a hybrid quantitative audit of organisational communication satisfaction for collectivist contexts that is both reliable and valid, using Amos Graphics for structural equation modelling. The objective was also to develop a full latent variable model and to test its fitness to the data collected from a random sample of civil servants across Addis Ababa’s civil service bureaus. The study comprised three sequential parts, namely pilot, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (Main Study One) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (Main Study Two). These were used as per the existing framework in instrument development and validation. The pilot study indicated the need for more robust data. After a series of tests, principal factor axis factoring with oblique rotation was used as the most appropriate for perceptual data, out of several options on the EFA menu. The initially hypothesised six-factor solution with the dimensions of horizontal communication, personal feedback, supervisory communication, communication climate, relational trust and job satisfaction was found to be unfit for the data on conceptual and statistical grounds and psychometric analyses which involved the use of eigenvalues and the scree plot. A more appropriate two-factor solution based on the more precise parallel analysis strategy was consistent with current research that communication satisfaction is best conceptualised in terms of informational and relational domains as operationalised using the EFA procedure. The two-factor solution led to the formation of a 17-item scale out of the original 30-item measure, with two latent dimensions namely relational satisfaction and informational satisfaction. The items of the new EFA-generated organisational communication satisfaction scale were renumbered consecutively and the scale was cross-validated on a xiv new sample of 288 civil servants from the Addis Ababa City Administration. The cross-validation necessitated model respecification and re-estimation. The respecified model underwent validation at different levels. All seven aspects of validity, namely content validity, construct validity, factorial validity, reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity and nomological validity, were addressed and found to be adequate. However limitations are also indicated as avenues for further enquiry.Communication ScienceD. Litt. et Phil. (Communication

Mapping the Reproductive Health Communication Landscape: A State-of-the-art Review

Background: Reproductive health communication encompasses family planning, maternal, neonatal and child health, and sexual and reproductive health communications for adolescents and youth as fundamental elements for intervention. Objective: To summarize, examine, and identify gaps in the theoretical, methodological, empirical, and measurement literature on reproductive health communication as it relates to Ethiopia. Methods: A systematic search was conducted using electronic databases such as the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (MEDLINE), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Psychological Information (PsychINFO), and Google Scholar to locate theoretic, psychometric, and empirical literature on reproductive health communication. Results: Local literature identified by the databases were mainly based on crosssectional designs, had small sample size and lacked essential psychometric protocols. Results showed that most studies replicatively focused on spousal communication centering reproductive choices and decisions. A common strategy was to use student populations as data sources limiting the generalizability of findings. Conclusion: The need for more diverse designs and areas of investigation using better instrumentation is indicated

Interstate Media Wars: The Experience of the Ethiopian Federation

The present study interrogates the interstate media wars that erupted following the emergence of relational troubles among the parties of Ethiopia’s coalition: the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Data from archives and interviews were used to understand the causes and characteristics of the media wars that were mostly fought out on television and other mass media. Findings show that the states used offensive and defensive strategies that included delegitimation, narrativisation and moralisation. Findings further indicate that the most open media war involved the Somali and Oromia states, which used Facebook as their major platform to express an open political hostility relating to their ethnoterritorial disputes in the earliest phases of the conflict. The present study highlights the potential dangers of inflammatory state media deployment in the context of fractured and fragile federations

Reputation of Addis Ababa University in the Eyes of Students: A College-Level Perspective from Teacher Preparation Programs

The evidence base continues to confirm the leveraging effect of reputation in higher education as an important strategic resource influencing a university’s visibility, attractiveness, credibility, impact, and competitive position nationally and internationally. From their expressed interest in their relative national and continental rankings, Ethiopian universities seem to have started sensing the relevance of their reputational position. In this article, we report a mixed methods study of the reputation of Addis Ababa University using data from a random sample (N = 153) of teacher training students of science, social science, and humanities and languages backgrounds under the College of Education and Behavioural Sciences (CEBS). A piloted and validated university reputation scale with open-ended items was used to illicit student opinion. In addition to descriptive statistics, inferential designs that involved correlation and ANOVA procedures were employed. Ratings for global reputation, quality of academic programs, quality of external performance, and emotional engagement are reported. Limitations and directions for further research are indicated

Predictive model of organizational justice, job satisfaction, and commitment: The context of the state media sector in the Ethiopian federation

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship among interactive justice, overall job satisfaction, and organizational commitment in the Ethiopian federal state media sector. Data were gathered from samples of journalists working for Ethiopian Television, Addis Ababa Media Network, Ethiopian Press Agency and Ethiopian News Agency using self-administered scales. Findings of multiple regression analyses indicated that job satisfaction and interactive justice together explained more than a third of the variance in organizational commitment. Partial least squares methods further showed paths: (a) between interactive justice and commitment, (b) interactive justice and job satisfaction, (c) job satisfaction and commitment were significant. A mediation effect of job satisfaction on the relationship between interactive justice and commitment was also observed. Further analyses showed that, except for educational level, all other biographical and institutional antecedents played no significant role in the prediction of commitment. Implications are discussed in relation to the human resource management of media institutions

Alternative voices from London: Women and the Abyssinian War in Sylvia Pankhurst’s internationalist weekly New Times and Ethiopia News

AbstractEthiopia’s national and military morale was at its lowest ebb when Italian forces seized Addis Ababa on 5 May 1936, following the failure of the League of Nations to stop Mussolini’s colonial aggression and the lack of political will among the big powers. New Times and Ethiopia News (NTEN) debuted on the historic day of 5 May conceived as an emancipatory journalism project to give the liberation struggle a new lease of life on the diplomatic, political, and military fronts. The newspaper advocated the need for international mobilization against fascism and colonialism with Ethiopia as a victim nation as its focus. An important facet of the liberation journalism was gender-based discursive struggle against colonial and fascist exploitation and war crimes targeting women and girls. In the activist journalism represented by NTEN that subsequently became an important global platform involving a network of mainly European feminist writers and academics who opposed fascism and Nazism, Sylvia Pankhurst also addressed issues of agency and the circumstances affecting Ethiopian women and girls anchored in her global view that the rise of fascism had ravaging ramifications for women. Using historical research methods and thematic analysis with a feminist lens, this study identifies thematic discourses of women in military roles, diplomacy as well as atrocities against women, covering the period of the struggle against Italian occupation of Ethiopia. The study finds that the paper was a classic example of international alternative press that chronicled women’s exploits and opposed excesses against them. The study contributes to the body of scholarship on the interwar period of alternative press journalism and more particularly understanding of the gender dimension of the role and plight of women under the claws of colonialism