The Use of Communication for Women Empowerment in the Rural Part of Ethiopia: The Case of Molale Woreda
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Date
2014-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to examine how effective communication strategy can playa
crucial role in empowering rural women who have limited acsses to information. As a theoretical
frame work different communication approaches were reviewed and participatory
communication theory was employed to inform the study. Four basic research questions were
formulated to guide the study and qualitative research method was selected as the principal
method of the study. The study employed in depth interview, focus group discussion and direct
observations to gather the necessary data from purposely selected respondents.
The finding of the study showed that Molale Woreda has communication strategies designed to
empower women in political, social and economic aspects. Different women's associations,
government workers, schools, event celebrations and trainings are the basic tools used to
implement the strategy while mass media are the least. The study also revealed that women have
their own traditional communication methods that are not found in the strategy and interpersonal
communication with female development communicators was preferable way of communication
by them. However, there were various communication barriers found to be the big challenges to
implement the strategy and results women were not equally participating in political, economic
and social phenomenon. These include the existing negative attitude towards women, illiteracy,
ownership of communication materials, lack of freedom to public sphere and lack of trained
human power.
Therefore, the study concluded that the communication strategies employed to empower women
in this study area (Molale) were designed to be participatory, however their participation is not
genuine rather it is for the sake of informing and getting feedback. This results women to have
limited acsses to infom1ation and based on the finding of the study the researcher forwarded
some recommendations to improve the communication strategy for empowering women.
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Keywords
Use of Communication for Women Empowerment