Audience Reception Of Radio Messages That Discourage Early Marriage The Case Of Mecha District

This study was conducted to explore audiences’ interpretation and response to radio messagesrnthat discourage early marriage in Amhara Region, West Gojam Zone, Mecha district. Torngenerate the appropriate data, triangulations of quantitative and qualitative research methodsrnwere employed. Convenience and purposive sampling methods were also used to select studyrnsubjects. The study elicited important insights in the understanding of how different audiencesrnmake meaning out of radio messages that discourage early marriage and how they decode thernmessages. Accordingly, it was found out that audiences have the knowledge and awareness ofrnearly marriage and its harmful consequences, but have different understandings of the termrnearly marriage as compared to the encoder. In other words, communication failure is detectedrnbetween the encoder and decoders. With regard to respondents’ reaction to radio messages onrnearly marriage, study subjects have showed positive reactions to the preferred meaning.rnSpecifically, educated, and urban respondents showed a preference to totally accepting thernpreferred meaning of radio messages on early marriage. In addition, the age of respondentsrnimpacted on the decoding the radio messages on early marriage. As the age of respondentsrnincreases, their reading of the preferred meaning decreases and vice versa. The Muslimrnreligion with regard to girls’ marriage at first age was found to be incompatible with thernpreferred meaning of radio messages that discourage early marriage. However, thernEthiopian Orthodox Christian religion was found to be compatible concerning girls’ marriage atrnfirst age with the preferred meaning. In comparison, the illiterate tended, in contrast to thernliterate, to perceive radio messages that discourage early marriage as incompatible with theirrnlocal culture.. The language that the Amhara radio program used was found to be easilyrnunderstandable except the minor problem with the use of the Wollo dialect. In addition, therncontent of the radio messages on early marriage were found to be easy for respondents torncomprehend. Generally, study subjects showed positive reactions to radio messages thatrndiscourage early marriage regardless of their behavioral change.

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