18 pages, via online journal article, On April 2016, the weekly Farm News cut its ties with veteran freelancer Rick Friday who drew a cartoon that called attention to how much the CEOs of large agricultural corporations are paid. This study examines the determinants of people’s attitudes toward Mr. Friday’s firing. Using data gathered from a national online survey of newspaper readers, this study traced the antecedents of these attitudes. While the incident drew strong negative reactions, we found that public attitudes were strongly mediated by readers’ attitudes toward Big Ag advertisers. That is, those who saw Big Ag in a positive light were more inclined to report less negative attitudes toward the firing. Another factor that influenced public reaction is the way people perceived the relationship between the farm press and their large corporate advertising sponsors. These findings indicated audience awareness of the synergy between content making and profit making in the farm news business, and that readers saw the relationship between big advertisers and the press as not necessarily adversarial. Those in agricultural states tended to see the editorial cartoon and the firing incident as more relevant to their lives than their counterparts in non-agricultural areas. However, the perceived relevance of the editorial cartoon and the firing incident had no bearing on people’s attitudes toward the incident. Implications of the findings on fostering a healthy relationship between farm newspapers, their readers, and the agribusinesses that advertise in them are discussed.
Mitchell, Glen H. (author) and Mitchell, Mark L. (author)
Format:
Report
Publication Date:
1979-06
Published:
USA
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 169 Document Number: D08730
Notes:
James F. Evans Collection, MW-35. Community Consumer Education Awareness Project sponsored by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Extension Division in cooperation with the Title 1 Higher Education Act of 1965, Blacksburg, Virginia. 47 pages.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 149 Document Number: C23928
Notes:
Via The Hoot, Media Foundation, New Delhi, India. 1 page., "Mediawatch Brief" says Doordarshans audience research wing studied the impact of its rural development programs on rural households. "It then announced happily that 59 per cent of the rural audience in the country was watching its agriculture programme, and 48 per cent was watching Grameen Bharat." However, "rural households" in the study were located in eight cities.
