Beall, Gary A. (author), Hayes, James H. (author), and Beall: Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California, Davis, CA; Hayes: Director, Brock Center for Agricultural Communication, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
1992
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 90 Document Number: C06376
James F. Evans Collection; Paper presented at the July 1991 International ACE Meeting in Rapid City, SD, Newspapers set the campaign agenda for two environmental initiatives appearing on California's November 1990 general election ballot. In doing so, they relied heavily upon unnamed sources (proponents, experts, environmentalists, etc.) and poorly identified advocacy groups. Although the agricultural community perceived both ballot measures to be agricultural issues, the media defined them in a much broader, environmental context. The agricultural industry-sponsored initiative was treated as a non-issue by the newspapers. It received only five percent of the news and editorial space devoted to the two initiatives. However, pro and con coverage of each initiative was generally balanced, reflecting an overall attempt at fairness and willingness to present both sides of the issue. (original)
James F. Evans Collection; Paper presented at the International Meeting of Agricultural Communicators in Education; 1990 July 16; St. Paul, MN, A lack of theory, models, and methods in the agricultural science news writing process spurred the initial investigation of this specialized writing process. Data were collected via process-tracing methods of a minute-by-minute observation of a farm magazine writer's writing process. The researcher used a protocol chart to record the nature and duration of the social-cognitive behaviors of the five stories. Results showed these cognitive behaviors dominated the writing process: organize, generate, compose, finalize, and edit language. The peak of cognitive behaviors occurred during the middle time period. The social-individual category showed a predominance of talking with associates while the social-organizational category showed a predominance of consulting documents. Cognition is the hub activity, significantly following social-individual and social-organizational behaviors. A potential model of the agricultural science news writing process was developed. (original)
