Sloan, Margaret F. (author), Trull, Laura (author), Malomba, Maureen (author), Akerson, Emily (author), Atwood, Kelly (author), and Eaton, Melody (author)
Format:
Journal article
Publication Date:
2022
Published:
USA: Sagamore-Venture Publishing Inc.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 208 Document Number: D13249
17 pages, Much of the press on the pandemic has been focused on urban environments where the virus was quick to spread and the numbers of cases are high. Beyond the greater risk for COVID-19-related health complications, rural populations are particularly susceptible to disruptions in the economic infrastructure of their communities. This study explores the impacts of COVID-19 on rural communities and the responses of nonprofit and other community infrastructures. Using a strengths-based approach and mixed methods design, this qualitative research asked rural residents and nonprofit leaders about their needs, challenges, and assets as a result of COVID-19. Themes relative to access, interdependence, and community emerged from a priori categories. The research offers implications for both nonprofit education and rural nonprofit leadership.
8 pages, The purpose of this project was to evaluate the Virginia Cooperative Extension internship program from the perspective of student participants and their supervisors. Three focus groups were conducted with internship supervisors from the summer of 2019. Student survey data was used to identify concerns from the student perspective to inform the supervisor focus group questions. In addition to the questions, a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis was also used to collect qualitative data within the supervisor focus groups. Findings suggest areas of strength that can be used in marketing as well as opportunities for program improvement.
12 pages., Via online journal., This article is concerned with the shaping of agricultural knowledge among farmers, in the context of the rapid changes Polish agriculture has been subject to since the time of the country's EU accession. The theoretical underpinnings of this work have been described in terms of the significant notional categories, i.e. knowledge, knowledge-cultures and sources of knowledge. The research made use of the joint interviews method. Interviews were run with representatives of different generations in 10 farming families in central Poland. The main research objective was to determine sources of farming knowledge among farmers. The use of joint interviews allowed for the identification of sources of knowledge of different kinds. These reflect a division into farmers' closer and more distant surroundings, i.e. to the family and neighbours on the one hand, and to institutions and media on the other. Knowledge acquisition among farmers is in fact found to be a complex process, reflecting socialisation in a multi-generation environment of family and neighbours, on the one hand, and the impact of the institutional and legal system, on the other. In a general sense, this corresponds to the well-known division of sources of knowledge into the tacit and the explicit, with the acquisition of tacit (i.e. informal) knowledge not meeting with any more major obstacles thanks to proximity in a sense that may be cultural (i.e. the agriculture itself), family-related (and in fact multi-generation) and spatial (physical proximity in a given locality). Microsocial conditioning thus plays a major role in the shaping of this source of knowledge. However, the most important factor distinguishing contemporary cultures as regards knowledge on farming is the capacity to adapt to conditions set by the institutions supporting the latter's development. Formal knowledge flowing into farming families from their institutional surroundings requires growing adaptability and preparation if a succession of innovations are to be taken on board. The multi-source nature of knowledge and the achievement of some kind of balance in this respect actually poses a major challenge for the future functioning of family farms as cultural microsystems.
21 pages., Online via UI e-subscription, "This essay makes the argument for the centrality of communication in studying and developing community." Following discussion of general theoretical arguments affirming and advancing this case, the author examined a specific type of community-oriented communicative event - civic communion. "Civic communions are episodes of community interaction that function as rhetorical and performative civic sacraments bonding citizenry around the social and political structures of a specific locale."
This article is maintained in the office of the Agricultural Communications Program, University of Illinois > "International" section > "Philippines CARD Group" file folder., Summarizes findings of a case study about effectiveness of news and information posted regularly on chalkboards located in several Philippine villages. The enterprise involved local volunteer staffing.
