Executive Pay in the Public Sector: The Case of CEOs in UK Universities

We analyse top management public sector pay using a panel data of university Vice Chancellors (VC) in UK. We assess how institutional performance, hierarchical effects, and personal characteristics determine VC pay. VC personal data covers personal details, qualifications and career history, which let us distinguish between internal promotions and hires from outside academia. We use the results of three Research Assessment Exercises as academic performance indicators, and university financial positions as measures of sound executive management. We analysed the importance of university salary structure and how they affect VC pay. Fixed and random institutional effects are also identified and analysed.pay, public sector, CEO, universities

Communication and Harmony: Tradomedia and its Effects on Social Change in Developing Nations

Communication gap has been recognized globally to be one of the major grounds where disharmony sprouts. This further indicates that there are idiosyncratic communication methods particular to each community for effective communication. In other words, culture determines the relationship of what is said to what is meant, for example when “no” means “may be” and “tomorrow” means “never.” It also determines the timing of interpersonal events, the appropriate place and tone for discussion of particular topics, as well as physical distance to be maintained between one speaker and another. In developing nations like Nigeria, rural dwellers mainly use their tradomedia to communicate effectively with one another. They are the people’s media and their orature. The latter is the oral equivalent of their literature, which is not stored anywhere except in their collective memories. It thus becomes necessary for anyone who wants to effectively evoke harmonious participation of the ruralites in any development program to adopt the use of the tradomedia. Studies in the diffusion of innovation and the two-step flow of information have confirmed this. Non- adoption of tradomedia in the implementation of government policies targeted at rural development in the Niger Delta has been chaotic and futile. A rural community, Ibusa in Delta State was studied to investigate the effectiveness of tradomedia messages in provoking the harmonious participation of the indigenes in the government sponsored Poverty Alleviation Program (P.A.P.). This study revealed that tradomedia is more effective than the mass media in provoking audience harmonious participation in Ibusa

Skewed global-focusing and global-spectacle of ISIS: A subtle media strategy for manufacturing popular dissent for terrorism as a legitimate approach for seeking political change in the Middle East

Information from Word press page of Amaq News Agency (ANA), ISIS’s “official” news wire, may always be instantaneously transferred across millions of computer screens and mobile phones by news outlets and commentators around the world (Winter, 2016) The preceding statement constitutes one of the key arguments of Charlie Winter, a Senior Researcher at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR), in an article written in The Atlantic. The author goes on to say that ISIS terrorism doesn’t end when a bomb detonates. It continues for hours, days, and weeks after, living on through the media. which is true in the case of most of its attacks. Putting aside the Winter’s criticism of western media, the relationship between the mass media and terrorism particularly ISIS have often been described as symbiotic. The terrorists provide the media with emotional bloody news which then helps the mass media sell their products. Another less convincing but dominant criticism of the media (Perl 1997), (Spencer 2012), (Majoran 2015), (Rudoy 2016), (Doward 2015), (Bilgen 2012) is that Talibans, ISIS or the Jaosh-e Mohamed in Panthankot receive substantial media attention that lead to further violence. What these arguments often fail to recognize or note, however is that while media marathons and debates discussing the cruelties of terrorists like ISIS create and spread fear, induce panic and urgency, the mass media, in this case, western mass media, are at the same time manufacturing popular dissent for ISIS agenda and their use of terrorism as means for pursuing political change. More so, while ISIS’s “official” news wire, may always be instantaneously transferred across millions of computer screens and mobile phones by news outlets and commentators around the world, these commentators and news outlets often leave off vital information including about ANA, the groups goals, mission, vision, etc. which may lead-on an initially indifferent or nauseated individual to a sympathetic t-extrovert. T-extroverts are persons unexperienced but interested in the objects and actions of terrorists. So, how does the western mass media stage and manufacture popular dissent for ISIS agenda and use of terrorism as means for pursuing political change? This essay argues that two things are crucial in determining whether the mass media manufactures popular dissent or consent for ISIS agenda and terrorism as a means to an end. The first, is the western mass media’s global-focusing strategy on the group’s dehumanizing activities, mission, goals, struggles, challenges, and events that provided the generative force for their destructive operations in the Middle East and Europe. The second, a global spectacle of their actions and reasons for their actions (as though different from reasons of previous world and civil wars: power and glory, the pleasure of ruling, ideological day dreams, avenging wrongs, religious political or ethnic superstition) are key to dissuading terrorism as a legitimate means to political change. A close examination of multiples of tens of media reports on some of the most recent terrorist attacks in London, United States, Sweden and Brussels reveal the rhetorical devices and strategies employed by three news outlet to manufacture dissent among indifferent members of the audience and generate further nauseating feeling for extant queasy members of the audience. The essay proceeds as follows. The next section presents a very brief history of ISIS mission, goals, struggles, challenges and events that provided the generative force for their destructive operations in the Middle East and Europe, and provides empirical data to demonstrate how much attention the western media particularly CNN pays to these issues. Following this, the remainder of the essay will focus on the two mass media strategies for manufacturing popular dissent for the group’s activities as part of its contribution to the fight against using terrorism as a legitimate approach for seeking political change. The final section will draw conclusions that a skewed global-focusing and global spectacle of ISIS activities is a subtle art of downplaying important information that may arouse curiosity that can prompt an enormous pro ISIS deportment in other nations

A Crazy Cyber World: Construction of a Composite Index for Measuring Child Online Protection (COP)

On 17th November 2010, the international telecommunications union (ITU) launched a new Child Online Protection (COP) phase. Years after setting up these guidelines, it is important to develop a composite measure that provides an intuitive understanding of the gaps in child online protection system, creates cross national comparisons for advocacy and action. The enquiry proposes an objective assessment of where each country stands in child online protection across four critical priority areas. These areas include: nationally recognized child online protection strategy/ legislations; Collaboration, cooperation and partnerships; information sharing/reporting mechanism; and capacity building/institutional support. The four areas are reflected in the Child Online Protection Index (COPI) structure which comprises four sub-indexes. Each sub index is in turn measured by five categorical indicators. The indicators are derived or adapted from key institutions active in the information and communications technologies (ICT) sector and in child online safety issues

Children, Youths and Mediated Violence: A Reflective Evaluation of Some Selected Theoretical Models.

Mediated violence especially as it affects children or the youths, has continued to benefit from scholarly attention in the area of research and theoretical explication. However, some of the research outcomes and theories show flawed arguments under serious theoretical interrogation. This paper uses a reflective analysis to interrogate further some of these theories and argues that they require a reassessment based on current thinking that the mass media alone could not cause violent effects to happen to children and the youths. In order words, media effects are not always direct, potent and particular in causing significant effects on an individual or the entire society. There are always combination of factors that cause changes in audience behaviours and perception arising from the exposure to media stimuli, in this case, media violence. Theoretical models like Individual Differences perspective, Uses and Gratification theory, and the other selective processes further support this thesis. The paper concludes that current studies on mediated violence and the use of theoretical frameworks must reflect the realistic position/actual conclusions rather than idealistic or impracticable ideas that are best sophistr

MAGNETIC FIELD, PRESSURE AND TEMPERATURE DEPENDENT OPTICAL PROPERTIES IN A GaAs 9.0 P 1.0 QUANTUM DOT

Simultaneous effects of magnetic field, pressure and temperature on the exciton binding energies are found in a 9.0 1.0 6.0 4.0 GaAs P / GaAs P quantum dot. Numerical calculations are carried out taking into consideration of spatial confinement effect. The cylindrical system is taken in the present problem with the strain effects. The electronic properties and the optical properties are found with the combined effects of magnetic field strength, hydrostatic pressure and temperature values. The exciton binding energies and the nonlinear optical properties are carried out taking into consideration of geometrical confinement and the external perturbations.Compact density approach is employed to obtain the nonlinear optical properties. The optical rectification coefficient is obtained with the photon energy in the presence of pressure, temperature and external magnetic field strength. Pressure and temperature dependence on nonlinear optical susceptibilities of generation of second and third order harmonics as a function of incident photon energy are brought out in the influence of magnetic field strength. The result shows that the electronic and nonlinear optical properties are significantly modified by the applications of external perturbations in a 9.0 1.0 6.0 4.0 GaAs P / GaAs P quantum dot

THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOUR: MEASURING ADOLESCENTS MEDIA LITERACY AND ALCOHOL DRINKING EXPECTANCIES

Alcohol advertising appeals to young people through humor, animation, bright colors and music; it tends to reinforce the link between drinking and socialization and being accepted by peers, which are important concerns for adolescents. Nonetheless, studies suggest that even a single media literacy intervention can help children and adolescents understand the persuasive appeals of tobacco and alcohol advertising messages and make a difference in their intention to use tobacco and alcohol, at least in the short-term. However, despite the accumulating research on impacts of alcohol advertising content on youth and the several studies that have explored media literacy intervention indifferent context, with numerous findings focusing on the influence of media literacy on decision making towards extant behaviors among adolescents, there was a need to quantitatively model within a Nigerian context if media literacy significantly alters adolescents drinking expectancies and which component of media literacy significantly alters these drinking expectancies. Hence, this study employing a Solomon-four experimental research design within the context of the theory of planned behavior and the media literacy framework examined the alcohol expectancies of media literate and illiterate adolescents. Using a sample size of 860 adolescents in Lagos State, the researcher hypothesized that there is no significant difference between alcohol expectancies of media literate and illiterate adolescents towards alcohol and alcohol consumption. Secondly, that there is no significant difference in the level of alteration caused by the various components of media literacy among media literates of same and different ages. The findings of the study revealed the component of media literacy framework that significantly alters adolescents’ drinking expectancies as well as the strength and direction of each media literacy component as they relate with adolescents drinking expectancies. Implications of the findings are discusse

Exposure to Television Advertisement and Product Preference Among Primary School Pupils in Nigeria

This experimental study, investigated the influence of television food adverts on children’s product preference. A sample of 210 participants between ages 5 and 11 years were selected via the random and stratified sampling techniques. The instrument of data collection was Thurstones Preference Rating Scale (TPRS). The moderating role of age and gender were calculated to test the three null hypotheses raised at 0.05 level of significance. Findings denote that there is a significant difference in the preference for an advertised product between children within age 5-8 and children within age 9-11. Disparate from some western studies, the Chi-square value in this research been 0.543 and greater than the critical value in the goodness of fit value table, implies that older children are more influenced by food advertisements

Cyber resilience preparedness of Africa’s top-12 emerging economies

This paper proposes the Cyber Resilience Preparedness Index for monitoring and comparing the cyber resilience of Africa’s top-12 emerging economies. The index covers five critical areas that incorporate a total of 24 indicators derived or adapted from the International Telecommunication Union’s 2014 Cyber Wellness Profiles, a Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation white paper on global cyber risk and the well-known Cyber Readiness Index. The final Cyber Resilience Preparedness Index is a simple average of the five area (sub-index) scores; the score for each sub-index is also the simple average of the scores of the composing indicators. This computation assumes that all the sub-indices contribute equally to national cyber resilience preparedness. The results indicate that six countries, namely Sudan, Ghana, Libya, Zimbabwe, Algeria and Angola, are at risk to compromises of their critical systems. In contrast, Egypt tops the chart of six countries, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco and South Africa, that demonstrate preparedness against compromises to their critical systems, industries and classified documents, as well as against industrial espionage. This study also argues that assessments of the progress of Africa’s fastest-growing economies should be conducted periodically using evolving evaluation criteria