Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 199 Document Number: D09902
Notes:
Presentation at the Association of Communication Excellence (ACE) conference during the Agricultural Media Summit, Scottsdale, Arizona, August 4-8, 2018. 1 page.
Presents "some of the challenges arising from the growing amounts of information available and exhausting the managements when defining the direction of future development of a company."
April 19 issue via online. 9 pages., "With the rise of legal marijuana across the country, the publishing industry is also seeing an increase in print magazines and new media brands focused on cannabis to meet growing demand for news and insight related to the upstart industry."
Report of the Online Farm Trials Project developed to "bring national grains research data and information directly to the grower, agronomist, researcher, the grains industry, and the community through through innovative online technology."
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 131 Document Number: D11333
Notes:
Online from the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. 22 pages., Report of a national online survey among a representative sample of 18- to 37-year old residents in the United States. Invited information about science topics and other related and unrelated content areas, then build a picture of science relevance and connection from the full pattern of survey responses. "...this investigation represents a crucial first step toward a more data-driven, audience-centric approach to doing public engagement with and for young adults - an approach that is necessary and appropriate for the 21st century."
16 pages, via online journal article, This study examined the online content of interdisciplinary agricultural center webpages. Content modification dates, mission statements, and content were determined through a content analysis. Many of the websites did not mention a modification date for the content, while many websites had outdated content mostly older than six months. More than two-thirds of the websites provided PDFs that visitor could download to learn more about topics, by many of the websites lacked any media element that was being coded. Additionally, many websites did not use multiple forms of media. More than half of the websites were coded as lacking any social media content or plugins, but out of the websites that did include social media content, Facebook was the most prevalent. The commonalities between the center’s mission displayed on the website and the content theme were analyzed and chi-square tests provided the degree of association. A significant association existed and an alignment between communication strategies and missions of the centers was concluded, which is important when organizations communicate about agricultural science as indicated by previous literature. It is recommended that centers communicate via their websites in a timely manner and allow modification times to be seen to viewers to show their information is up-to-date. Website media content should also be diversified and communicators of these centers should explore the unique communication opportunities provided by social media. Future research should explore the target audience of interdisciplinary agricultural centers and should analyze the messages centers are using to communicate with those audiences.
