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2. Can anyone hear us? An exploration of echo chambers at a land-grant university
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- 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
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Applied Communications
- Journal Title Details:
- 103(2)
- Notes:
- 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.
3. Collaboration Relations in Climate Information Production and Dissemination to Subsistence Farmers in Namibia
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- New, Mark (author) and Ofoegbu, Chidiebere (author)
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Publication Date:
- 2020-09-28
- Published:
- International: Springer Link
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 202 Document Number: D12098
- Journal Title:
- Environmental Management
- Journal Title Details:
- (2021) 67
- Notes:
- 14 Pgs., Although climate information can aid farmers’ capacity to adapt to climate change, its accessibility and adoption by subsistence farmers hinge on the collaboration between farmers and climate information providers. This paper examines collaborations among actors in the process of climate information production and dissemination in the Namibian agricultural sector. The aim is to investigate the extent to which subsistence farmers are integrated into the collaboration process and the impact of the collaboration on the nature and accessibility of disseminated information. Key informant interviews and a questionnaire survey were used for data collection. Using network analysis, we estimated the networks’ density, clustering coefficient, and degree centrality. The study found that both the climate information production and dissemination networks have a high overall clustering coefficient (78% and 77%, respectively) suggesting a high rate of collaboration among the actors in the networks. However, the frequency of interactions between the actors in both the information production and dissemination networks and subsistence farmers remains very low. Nearly all surveyed farmers reported that they meet with information providers only once in a year. The effect of this poor interaction is reflected in the poor occurrence of feedback learning, which is needed to optimize channels of information dissemination to subsistence farmers and enhance the robustness of disseminated information. We recommend innovative communication means via mobile phone, promotion of peer-to-peer learning, flexible collaboration relations with more space for feedback from the users of climate information, and more attention to long-term forecasts and their implications for adaptive actions.
4. Editorial: Bridging the knowing-doing gap: know-who, know-what, know-why, know-how and know-when
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Hulme, Philip E. (author)
- Format:
- Editorial
- Publication Date:
- 2014-10
- Published:
- USA
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 159 Document Number: D07699
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Applied Ecology
- Journal Title Details:
- 51 (5): 1131-1136
5. Farmers’ perception of the quality of mobile-based extension services in Egypt: a comparison between public and private provision
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Kassem, Hazem S. (author), Shabana, Rasha M. (author), Alotaibi, Bader M. (author), and Ghoneim, Yomna A. (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019-04
- Published:
- SAGE Journals
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 18 Document Number: D10523
- Journal Title:
- Information Development
- Notes:
- 20 pages., via online journal., During the last 10 years, different initiatives have been implemented to provide mobile-based extension services for the agricultural sector in Egypt. The current study compared the quality of agricultural extension messages between public and private providers. A simple random sample of 120 farmers was selected representing 7% of the total farmers registered in the databases of Ministry of Agriculture (public services) and Shoura company (private services). Farmers assessed a sample of 10 messages delivered by both providers in terms of six indicators namely (1) access, (2) utilization, (3) timeliness, (4) trust, (5) satisfaction, and (6) sharing information with other farmers. The findings revealed the lack of access to messages by the farmers in the two services. However, more than 50% had utilized the majority of messages (in case of access). The study also showed significant differences between perception of farmers to quality attributes in public and private services (Access 6.77, 0.01; Utilization 8.44, 0.004; Timeliness 8.55, 0.002; Satisfaction 8.88, 0.001; information sharing 7.62, 0.009) except for trust (1.11, 0.4). Findings provide practical implications to support mobile-based extension services to enable sharing information and link farmers with other actors in the agricultural value chain.
6. Linking reductionist science and holistic policy using systematic reviews: unpacking environmental policy questions to construct an evidence-based framework
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Pullin, Andrew S. (author), Knight, Teri M. (author), and Watkinson, Andrew R. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2009-10
- Published:
- International
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 159 Document Number: D07713
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Applied Ecology
- Journal Title Details:
- 46 (5): 970-975
7. Model farmers, extension networks and the politics of agricultural knowledge transfer
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Taylor, Marcus (author) and Bhasme, Suhas (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2018-11
- Published:
- International: Science Direct
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 151 Document Number: D10128
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Rural Studies
- Journal Title Details:
- 64 : 1-10
- Notes:
- 10 pages, via online journal, Model farmers are a common feature of many developing world agricultural extension networks within which they demonstrate new cultivation techniques and technologies to local communities. The diverse political-economic and socio-cultural roles that such farmers assume, however, are rarely afforded critical scrutiny. To do so, we emphasise the ways in which model farmers facilitate not only the production and transfer of knowledge but also of materials and legitimacy. These transfers occur both horizontally to community members and vertically through linkages with extension agents, research institutions and private sector interests. We establish how these transfers have important impacts upon both efficiency and equity. To illustrate, we use examples of model farmers drawn from research on hybrid rice dissemination in Mandya district, Karnataka. Despite having the same official functions within the extension network, the model farmers we surveyed assumed strongly different roles with notable implications for the effectiveness of knowledge transfer alongside equity considerations.
8. The situation and solutions for using indigenous knowledge of local people in adaptation to floods in An Giang Province, Vietnam
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Phu, P. X. (author) and De, N. N. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2016-12
- Published:
- Vietnam
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 170 Document Number: D09181
- Journal Title:
- Asia-Pacific Journal of Rural Development
- Journal Title Details:
- 26 (2) : 72-96
- Notes:
- An Giang University, Long Xuyen City, An Giang, Vietnam Can Tho University, Can Tho City, Vietnam
9. Transforming communication and knowledge production processes to address high-end climate change
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Tàbara, J. David (author), St. Clair, Asun Lera (author), and Hermansen, Erlend A.T. (author)
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2017-04-01
- Published:
- Science Direct
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 7 Document Number: D10272
- Journal Title:
- Environmental Science and Policy
- Journal Title Details:
- 70 : 31-37
- Notes:
- 7 pages., Via online journal., Recent GHG emissions trends are in stark contrast with the Paris Agreement’s target to hold the increase in average global warming to “well below 2 °C and pursue efforts to stay below 1,5 °C” by the end of the century compared with preindustrial times. This disconnect has further unveiled the limitations of current knowledge production and communication processes in Southern European countries, where fast institutional changes are needed to address the potential impacts as well as the opportunities for transformation derived from High-End Climate Change (HECC). The prevailing knowledge deficit-model – aimed at producing ‘more knowledge’ about climate impacts, vulnerabilities and long-term scenarios to decision makers – has long proven inadequate in tackling the many complexities of the present socio-climate quandary. The growing emphasis on assessing and implementing concrete solutions, demand new and more complex forms of agent interactions in the production, framing, communication and use of climate knowledge; and in particular, explicit procedures able to tackle difficult normative questions regarding assessment of solutions and the allocation of individual and collective responsibilities. To explore these challenges, we analyse the views of 30 Spanish knowledge contributors and users of the latest UN IPCC AR5 report and share the insights gained from the implementation of a participatory Integrated Assessment procedure aimed at developing innovative solutions to high-end climate scenarios in Iberia. Our analysis supports the view of the need to institutionalise transformation, and in particular underlines the potential role that transformative climate boundary organisations could play to address such difficult ethical choices in different contexts of action.
10. Understanding risk in forest ecosystem services: implications for effective risk management, communication and planning
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Blennow, Kristina (author), Persson, Johannes (author), Wallin, Annika (author), Vareman, Niklas (author), and Persson, Erik (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2013-09
- Published:
- Oxford Academic
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 138 Document Number: D11501
- Journal Title:
- Forestry: An International Journal of Forest Research
- Journal Title Details:
- 87(2): 219–228
- Notes:
- 10 pages., via online journal., Uncertainty, insufficient information or information of poor quality, limited cognitive capacity and time, along with value conflicts and ethical considerations, are all aspects that make risk management and risk communication difficult. This paper provides a review of different risk concepts and describes how these influence risk management, communication and planning in relation to forest ecosystem services. Based on the review and results of empirical studies, we suggest that personal assessment of risk is decisive in the management of forest ecosystem services. The results are used together with a review of different principles of the distribution of risk to propose an approach to risk communication that is effective as well as ethically sound. Knowledge of heuristics and mutual information on both beliefs and desires are important in the proposed risk communication approach. Such knowledge provides an opportunity for relevant information exchange, so that gaps in personal knowledge maps can be filled in and effective risk communication can be promoted.