20 pages; Article 3, via online journal, Student-run publications, including newsrooms and similar agency-style work achieve the curricular goal of experiential learning (Roberts, 2006) for university agricultural communication students. Gaining a journalistic skillset in the classroom is richly supplemented with experiencing real-world and authentic agency immersion to reveal to students the genuine characteristics of a workplace. The purpose of this study was to use Q methodology to evaluate a real-world, out-of-class-but-supervised newsroom producing publications for the State FFA Convention. Fifteen undergraduate students who were immersed in this three-day program in which students publish original work to disseminate information to FFA participants and the public participated in the study at the end of the newsroom experience. With a concourse sampled along four dimensions of growth and development (Author, 2014), a Q set of 36 statements was sorted. In addition to the Q sorts, comments gathered from the students at the last session assisted in the interpretation of data. Post-sort interviews were conducted with exemplar sorters. Data were analyzed using principal components and varimax rotation and interpreted to show three ways the newsroom was experienced by the university students. The Supervisors honed managerial skills while working as colleagues with faculty supervisors. The Contented Staff valued the education gained from the experience and recognized the practical application of the communications-based skill-set. The Stressed Staff had insecurities and physical discomfort during the work and living in the city. Implications for program development, classroom instruction, and field experience assessment will be discussed.
Ruth, Taylor K. (author), Rumble, Joy N. (author), Galindo-Gonzalez, Sebastian (author), Lundy, Lisa K. (author), Carter, Hannah S. (author), Folta, Kevin M. (author), and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Ohio State University
University of Florida
Association for Communication Excellence
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2019
Published:
United States: New Prairie Press
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 15 Document Number: D10430
24 pages., Via online journal., Faculty at land-grant universities are expected to engage in some form of Extension, or science communication, as part of the land-grant mission. However, critics have claimed these institutions are out of touch with their stakeholders’ needs and faculty mainly communicate with others in academia. This engagement with a homogenous group reflects the concepts of echo chambers, where people are only exposed to information that aligns with their beliefs and current knowledge and discredit opposing information. An explanatory mixed-methods design was used to understand land-grant faculty’s engagement in echo chambers. A survey was distributed to a census of tenure-track faculty in the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences to understand respondents’ engagement in echo chambers. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 13 of the survey respondents to further explore their audiences and channels used in science communication to understand their engagement in echo chambers. Survey results indicated faculty did not necessarily participate in echo chambers, but they also did not contribute to an open communication network. However, the interviews found participants were interested in reaching new audiences yet struggled to communicate with stakeholders. The participants also reported wanting to find alternative channels to peer reviewed journals to help disseminate their work. The findings from this study indicated faculty contributed to a type of echo chamber, but rather than viewing their stakeholders’ opinions as false, they simply did not hear the opinions. Agricultural communicators should work with land-grant faculty administrators to identify appropriate audiences and channels for science communication.
Oesterreicher, Shelby (author), Lundy, Lisa K. (author), Rumble, Joy (author), Telg, Ricky W. (author), and University of Florida
The Ohio State University
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2018
Published:
United States: New Prairie Press
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 152 Document Number: D10157
15 pages, via online journal article, Millennial consumers are stepping into important roles as decision makers and consumers. A knowledge and communication gap exists between cattle producers and consumers this knowledge seeking generation. This study focused on collegiate millennials' perceptions of locally produced beef. The research design was qualitative in nature using focus groups. Participants associated the beef industry and beef products with the environment, management practices, treatment of animals, human health concerns, retail, experience with the beef industry, experience with beef, and transparency. Results of this study showed participants had minimal knowledge of the industry and relatively negative perceptions of the industry and beef products. Participants were skeptical of communication materials promotion beef and expressed particular distrust toward video messages. Participants revealed a knowledge and communication gap between producers and consumers
Leal, Arthur (author), Telg, Ricky W. (author), Rumble, Joy N. (author), Stedman, Nicole LaMee Perez (author), Treise, Debbie M. (author), and Universit of Tennessee, Knoxville
University of Florida
Association for Communication Excellence
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2019
Published:
United States: New Prairie Press
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 15 Document Number: D10428
22 pages., Via online journal., This national study sought to expand on current research to identify the importance of and graduates’ ability to perform selected social skills to aid in curricula evaluation and small program development. Using three evaluation groups – agricultural communication graduates, communication industry professionals, and agricultural communication faculty members – 193 individuals responded to the online survey. The most important social skills were those associated with having work values and transitioning into an organization to be a productive member in the workplace. Graduates placed a higher importance on social skills than the other two evaluation groups. All three evaluation groups showed some agreement on graduates’ highest ability to perform several social skills: The ability to be trustworthy, trained, reliable, professional, dedicated, and behave ethically were assigned the highest mean ability. A significant difference was found with the ability graduates afforded themselves in having common sense, being professional, and encompassing maturity versus the other two evaluation groups. Recommendations included incorporating and identifying social skills into instruction for students. Group work, presentations, internships, and student organizations were proposed as opportunities for social skill attainment. Agricultural leadership principles, oral communication, and professional development courses were recommended for new and developing agricultural communication programs that could serve to incorporate the most important social skills. Faculty members could benefit from research that can identify more effective measures to evaluate social skill attainment. Recommendations for future research included a similar assessment with technical skills and for other elements of the Agricultural Communication Program System Model to be assessed.
Zagonel, Anissa (author), Baker, Lauri M. (author), King, Audrey E.H. (author), and Kansas State University
Oklahoma State University
Association for Communication Excellence
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2019
Published:
United States: New Prairie Press
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 15 Document Number: D10433
15 pages., Via online journal., Investment of employees in a brand can lead to greater public understanding and positive impressions of a brand by external stakeholders. However, this can be challenging in public organizations with multiple brand segments and a large number of employees spread across great distance with limited funds for marketing. While previous work has looked at Extension agents, faculty, and volunteers’ brand perceptions, no studies have looked at communication services employees’ investment in the brand. The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover how well employees in a university and Extension printing and mail entity understood the Extension brand and their investment in the brand. Research questions that guided this study were: 1) What perceptions and investment do communication services employees have in the Extension brand? And 2) what are employees’ perceptions of the organization’s branding and marketing efforts? Each of the 18 interviews included a series of questions focusing on employees’ story related to Extension and employees’ thoughts on branding and marketing efforts. Results in this study with communication services employees indicate these employees are not invested in the brand with the majority having little to no understanding of the mission of Extension. This contradicts previous research with employees in other brand segments of Extension. Implications of this work include a need for training on the Extension mission for communication services employees, a shift in culture to encourage investment in the brand, and inclusion of all Extension employees in the mission of Extension.
13 pages, via online journal, Photography is an important competency of agricultural communications graduates and is a core skill taught in the discipline’s curriculum. The [department] at [university] offers an undergraduate photography course twice yearly in two semester formats: a traditional spring semester where photography principles are taught in the classroom and a 12-day experiential intersession semester that allows for flexibility in how and where the course is taught. Both semesters utilize the same instructor, assignments, and grading rubric. While much agricultural communications research has focused on photography as a needed skill, few studies examine photography teaching methods. The purpose of this study was to compare student performance in an agricultural communications digital photography course taught with an experiential learning approach to a traditional classroom approach during the 2016 and 2017 academic calendar years. Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory was used as the theoretical framework for this study. Independent-samples t-tests were conducted to compare students’ cumulative mean assignment scores, individual assignment mean scores, and rubric criteria mean scores within the two instruction formats. The results suggest instruction method has an effect on student performance in agricultural communications digital photography courses. Students in the experiential intersession course had significantly higher mean cumulative assignment scores compared to students in the traditional course. While individual assignment performance was less affected by instruction format, students’ understanding of specific photography skills (rubric criteria), especially composition and clarity was higher when in the experiential intersession format.
