Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08826
Notes:
Pages 1025-1044 in Rob Roggema (ed.), Agriculture in an urbanizing society volume two: proceedings of the sixth AESOP conference on sustainable food planning. United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Pages 601-1274.
8 pages, Public perception about the reality of climate change has remained polarized and propagation of fake information on social media can be a potential cause. Homophily in communication, the tendency of people to communicate with others having similar beliefs, is understood to lead to the formation of echo chambers which reinforce individual beliefs and fuel further increase in polarization. Quite surprisingly, in an empirical analysis of the effect of homophily in communication on the level of polarization using evidence from Twitter conversations on the climate change topic during 2007–2017, we find that evolution of homophily over time negatively affects the evolution of polarization in the long run. Among various information about climate change to which people are exposed to, they are more likely to be influenced by information that have higher credibility. Therefore, we study a model of polarization of beliefs in social networks that accounts for credibility of propagating information in addition to homophily in communication. We find that polarization can not increase with increase in homophily in communication unless information propagating fake beliefs has minimal credibility. We therefore infer from the empirical results that anti-climate change tweets are largely not credible.
Conference paper / Journal article, This study examined farmers’ readiness to assess social media as agro-information reception tool in the study area. An interview guide was used in collecting data from 120 farmers who were randomly selected. Data collected were analysed with the aid frequency counts percentages and logit regression. The results showed that half of the respondents (50%) had primary education. About 90% were aware of whatsapp and 12.6% were aware of blogs, respectively. Education, farming experience, membership of farmers’ group and extension access were the variables that positively influence farmers’ readiness to assesssocial media as agro-information reception tool while respondents’ age negatively influence readiness to assess social media. Enlightenment programmes for farmers on the use of social media and an improved extension services to keep the farmers acquainted with the benefits of social media.
Munthali, Nyamwaya (author), Lie, Rico (author), Van Lammeren, Ron (author), Van Paassen, Annemarie (author), Leeuwis, Cees (author), and Asare, Richard (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2021-06-12
Published:
South Africa: University of Witwatersrand
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12435
37 pages., Information and communication technologies (ICTs), specifically those that are digital and interactive, present opportunities for enhanced intermediation between actors in Ghana’s agricultural extension system. To understand these opportunities, this study investigates the capabilities of ICTs in support of seven forms of intermediation in the context of agricultural extension: disseminating (information), retrieving (information), harvesting (information), matching (actors to services), networking (among actors), coordinating (actors), and co-creating (among actors). The study identifies the types of ICTs currently functioning in Ghana’s agricultural system, and applies a Delphi-inspired research design to determine the consensus and dissensus of researchers, scientists, and practitioners about the potential of these ICTs to support each of the seven intermediation capabilities. The findings reveal that experts reached consensus that interactive voice response (IVR) technologies currently have the highest potential to support disseminating, retrieving, harvesting, and matching. Meanwhile, social media messaging (SMM) technologies are currently seen as highly capable of supporting coordinating and, to a lesser extent, co-creating, but no consensus is reached on the potential of any of the technologies to support networking.
17 pages, Traditionally, dietary choices are formed through socialization, social norms and the social environment, while news media seemed to have little impact on people’s diets. This article explores whether today’s news media consumption and in particular consuming and sharing information about food on social media are associated with following a vegetarian or vegan diet. The data come from a tailor-made survey carried out in Hamburg, Germany, in 2018 (N = 1,214). Making use of probit regression with multiple equations, we analyse the associations between vegetarianism and individual news consumption, having vegetarians in the social environment, and communicating about food, controlling for individual and family characteristics. We find that both regular news consumption via social media and having vegetarian friends or family members is associated with pursuing a vegetarian diet. Moreover, news consumption via social media comes with increased communication about food, suggesting high relevance of social media for pursuing a vegetarian diet.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08912
Notes:
Pages 60-79 in Koteyko, Nelya Nerlich, Brigitte Hellsten, Iina (eds.), Climate change communication and the internet. United Kingdom: Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, England. 217 pages.
Million, Angela (author), Bürgow, Grit (author), Steglich, Anja (author), and Raber, Wolf (author)
Format:
Proceedings
Publication Date:
2017
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Document Number: D08823
Notes:
Pages 801-831 in Rob Roggema (ed.), Agriculture in an urbanizing society volume two: proceedings of the sixth AESOP conference on sustainable food planning. United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Pages 601-1274.
