ACDC News – Issue 11-20

Season’s greetings to you from all of us in the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center.  We have enjoyed being in touch with you during 2011 through ACDC News and other contacts. Thanks for your interest in this dynamic, growing field of knowledge about communications within – and about – agriculture in all its breadth. Your interest gives us real encouragement.


Looking to see some of you on February 17. Business leaders, media, non-profit organizations and academia will meet here in Champaign, Illinois, on February 17 for a first-of-its-kind international agricultural communications symposium. Focused on “Food and Agricultural Communications – The Next Frontier,” this event is hosted by the College of Media and College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. It is open to anyone interested in strengthening communications about food, fiber, feed, renewable energy, rural-urban relations, natural resources, rural development other dimensions of agriculture.

More than 20 speakers from throughout the nation, and abroad, will define and explore critical issues facing food and agriculture including:

  • Seven revolutions and the world in 2030
  • Communicating better about what science can deliver
  • Food and ag – colliding beliefs and common ground
  • Bringing nutrition and rural development to the farthest reaches
  • Communications leaders – creating the next generation

This event marks the 50th anniversary of the agricultural communications program at the University of Illinois.  A gala celebration will follow the symposium program.

You can learn more at: http://www.agcommevent.com


About climate change: “Perhaps, in the end, feeling really is believing.” Findings reported recently by researchers Jane Risen and Clayton Critcher suggest that well-conducted research is not necessarily what makes a future event feel more real. People’s current personal experiences may over-ride scientific evidence. Authors concluded in a 2011 article in Chicago Booth Magazine from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business:

“Although there is no doubt that scientific evidence is an important method for convincing people of scientific facts, … our research suggests that factors that facilitate the ability to picture what a future event would look and feel like may, at times, exert a strong (if not stronger) effect.”

You can read the article here: http://www.chicagobooth.edu/magazine/33/2/facultydigest/facultydigest1.aspx


How to mix food advertising claims with product features. A recent article in the Journal of Applied Communication Research reported on research to explain the increasingly popular practice of using unmatched claims for food advertising.  Researchers used theory involving schemas, the mental structures that organize our beliefs and expectations about given domains.  In particular, they focused on how to identify effective advertising claims for “vice foods” (that provide immediate benefits and delayed costs) and “virtue foods” (immediate costs and delayed benefits).

Researchers found that individuals’ pre-existing product schemas play an important role in processing food information and evaluating products. They suggested strategies for choosing advertising claims that mix and match effectively with “vice” and “virtue” foods.

View the abstract of “The interplay between advertising claims and product categories at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/rjac/2011/00000039/00000001/art00004

Check with us at docctr@library.illinois.edu for help in gaining full-text access.


Media disconnect in Sub-Saharan Africa .  A 2009 report from the International Women’s Media Foundation described results of a study that monitored newspaper, television and radio coverage in Mali, Uganda and Zambia. Among the findings:

  1. Stories about agriculture accounted for only 4 percent of all media coverage.  Nearly half of the content involved government, legal and social welfare topics.
  2. Farmers and other rural/agricultural workers were seldom used as sources for agricultural reports.  Most sources were government representatives (48 percent), experts/professionals (22 percent), community leaders (6 percent) or others (4 percent).
  3. Women accounted for only 11 percent of the sources for agriculture stories.
  4. Women were the focus of just 7 percent of the agriculture stories.  “Yet women produce 70 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s food and make up half of the region’s population.”

You can read the full report here: http://www.iwmf.org/docs/SowingTheSeeds_final.pdf


Tip of the hat to Southern rural humor. It came under review recently in a panel discussion at the University of North Alabama and was covered by reporter Dennis Sherer of TimesDaily.com (Florence).  Panelists acknowledged how television shows about life in the South became huge hits with fans in the 1960s and 1970s, but often the target of critics.

“They would rush for the thesaurus to find new words to use to describe how terrible these programs were,” explained panelist Tim Hillis.  “The more critics yelled about them, the more popular the shows became.” It happened with “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Hee Haw,” “The Andy Griffith Show,” “The Dukes of Hazard” and other television shows (and films).

Panelists concluded that Southern life continues to resonate well with movie and television audiences. You can read the news article here:

http://ftstage.sx.atl.publicus.com/article/20110306/NEWS/110309879?Title=Panned-by-critics-Southern-TV-shows-popular-with-the-masses-


Congratulations and thanks to another valued ACDC associate.

Gemma

We congratulate Gemma Petrie as she completes her master’s degree in Library and Information Science this month.  Gemma has contributed in dozens of ways during the past year and a half as graduate assistant in the Center. For example, through her skilled efforts as academic coordinator and webmaster:

  • An improved ACDC website has come into operation
  • Plans for an advanced database system moved forward
  • The ACDC collection passed the 37,000-document mark
  • A project for digitizing selected ACDC documents got under way
  • Her efficient, friendly, professional style helped the Center grow in size, scope and service to users throughout the world

Thanks, Gemma, and best wishes in your career ahead.


Communicator activities approaching.

  • January 23, 2012
    Deadline for submitting research papers for presentation at the 2012 annual meeting of the International Association of Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE) in Annapolis, Maryland USA. Special Interest Group in Research invites papers relevant to agricultural communications.  A companion recognition program for graduate student papers also is available. Information: Prof. Courtney Meyers at courtney.meyers@ttu.edu
  • February 17, 2012
    “Food and Agricultural Communications – The Next Frontier.”  Industry-wide symposium hosted by the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences and the College of Media at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Information: http://www.agcommevent.com
  • March 22-23, 2012
    Annual meeting of the Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) in Charleston, South Carolina. Information: http://www.agrelationscouncil.org

How a farm editor can double readership levels. We close this issue of ACDC News with a piece of advice we discovered recently while conducting some historical research.  Paul Stephens of American Farming offered it during the 1922 meeting of the American Agricultural Editors’ Association, claiming it to be “the best editorial idea I ever had.”

“Every time you cut a story in two

you increase its readability 100 percent.”


Best regards and good searching.

Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Comm Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.illinois.edu

ACDC News – Issue 11-19

Guide to evaluating your website .  The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research has published an 87-page guide for CGIAR Centers. It may hold interest for agricultural communicators in other settings as well. Major sections of “Evaluating the impact of your website” feature:

  • Where the website fits into your strategy
  • Measuring usage (web analysis technologies, analytics)
  • Measuring usability (when to measure, methods to use)
  • Measuring usefulness (user surveys)

You can read the guide here:

http://ictkm.cgiar.org/archives/Evaluating_the_Impact_of_Your_Website.pdf


The exultant ark: a pictorial tour of animal pleasure .  That is the title of a new book we reviewed recently from the University of California Press.  “It is meant for humans to enjoy,” explains author Jonathan Balcombe.

In addition, the strong images in this 214-page book can be a creative sparkplug for agricultural journalists who photograph animals. Through narrative and photographs, the author examines these dimensions of animal life:  play, food, touch, courtship and sex, love, comfort, companionship and other pleasures.

You can read the publisher’s description here:

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520260245

Check with us at docctr@library.illinois.edu for help in gaining full-text access.


Social media – mixed blessings in health epidemics. We have added to the ACDC collection a news brief to this effect from the World Health Organization.  Director-General Margaret Chan explained that the rise of social media makes it extremely hard for any country to hide a public health threat of international concern.  However, “I can assure you that with the rise of social media, the background noises for rumours have become much louder and making it so much harder to detect the really important segments.”

Assistant director-general Keiji Fukuda reported that during the H1N1 scare in 2009-2010 the Internet was rife with rumours about how to build immunity against the disease.  “You have a lot of miscommunication mixed in with correct information.”

You can read the news brief here:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-social-media-epidemics.html


How “rural” fits into policy thinking about the digital divide. We have added to the ACDC collection a New Media and Society article about framing the digital divide.  Researchers examined eight key U.S. and European Union policy documents to identify the similarities and differences in how they defined the digital divide between 1995 and 2005. Among the findings:

  • U.S. documents tended to define “digital divide” in terms of access to equipment and infrastructure. They referred to distinct demographic segments such as “Hispanic,” “children” or “rural population.”
  • EU documents defined this issue as access to information and services, using more homogenizing terms such as “society,” citizens” or “public.”
  • The word “rural” was among the 40 most frequent words in U.S. policy documents, but not in EU documents.
  • In U.S. documents, “rural” dropped in ranking from 3rd in 1995 to not among the top 40 words in 2002.

You can read the abstract of this article here:

http://nms.sagepub.com/content/8/5/731.abstract?rss=1

Check with us at docctr@library.illinois.edu for help in gaining full-text access.


More on the fragility of digital data .  Our recent item in ACDC News about “when the digital data die” prompted agricultural journalist Fred Myers to write:

“What’s alarming is that most aren’t aware all digital media must be copied or they will be lost. The National Archives considers copying every five years as being ideal and necessary within 10 years regardless of what storage medium is used, be it internal or external hard drives or CDs.  At the minimum, there will be millions of families who will never see pictures of their relatives because the present masses haven’t a clue that digital isn’t film and that the days of discovering a shoebox full of priceless images is rapidly coming to a close.”

What are your thoughts about this subject, especially in terms of helping assure effective communications for the food, agriculture and natural resource needs of the future?  What approaches are you using, or hoping to use? Please get in touch with us at docctr@library.illinois.edu .


Lots of uncertainty about how much salt to eat. A survey report of research for the UK Food Standards Agency reveals how adults across the United Kingdom remain uncertain about salt in their diets. Here is a summary of replies when respondents were asked what they thought to be the recommended maximum daily intake of salt that adults should eat each day:

6 grams (recommended maximum)                 9 percent

More than 6 grams                                          About 17 percent

Less than 6 grams                                           About 32 percent

Do not know                                                   40 percent

You can review these and other findings at:

http://www.foodbase.org.uk/admintools/reportdocuments/641-1-1079_Food_and_You_Report_Main_Report_FINAL.pdf


Congratulations, thanks and best wishes to Devi Annamalai , who has served as an able, congenial associate in this Center during the past three years.  Devi recently completed her PhD in the Department of Plant Biology, with an active side interest in communications.  She helped us identify communications literature in the plant sciences that we probably would not have found without her expertise.  She is now a post-doctoral associate at Rockefeller University, New York City, working in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.


Communicator activities approaching

  • January 23, 2012
    Deadline for submitting research papers for presentation at the 2012 annual meeting of the International Association of Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE) in Annapolis, Maryland USA. Special Interest Group in Research invites papers relevant to agricultural communications.  A companion recognition program for graduate student papers also is available. Information: Prof. Courtney Meyers at courtney.meyers@ttu.edu
  • March 22-23, 2012
    Annual meeting of the Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) in Charleston, South Carolina. Information: http://www.agrelationscouncil.org

Feeling rushed, pushed and harried? We close this issue of ACDC News with a thought from Howard Nemerov:

“Praise without end for the go-ahead zeal
Of whoever it was invented the wheel;
But never a word for the poor soul’s sake
That thought ahead and invented the brake.”

Maybe his insight resonates with communicators working hard to advance agricultural and rural well-being. In all our countries, we have sometimes seen the sad and costly trail of rush-ahead, unfettered, ill-planned efforts, however well intended.

Share your thoughts with us at docctr@library.uiuc.edu


Best regards and good searching.

Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents we might add to this unique collection. We welcome them in hard copy (sent to Ag Comm Documentation Center, 510 LIAC, 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801) or in electronic format sent to docctr@library.illinois.edu .