To study the effectiveness of farm broadcasts through radio in disseminating agricultural information to the farmers of Trivandrum district

Abstract

The study was conducted in Trivendrum district of Kerala with the objective of identifying the preference of listeners with reference to mode, programme, duration and frequency of farm broadcasts. It was also decide to study the relationship between selected characteristics of listeners and their mass media exposure behaviour, listening behaviour, communication behaviour, source utilization behaviour and adoption behaviour. The selected charecteristics of the listeners were age, education, occupation, farm size, crops grown, radio ownership and discussion.

The available measurement techniques and scoring systems were used for independent variables such as education (Trivedi, 1963), social participation (Trivedi, 1963) and occupation (Badrinarayanan, 1977). Age was measured in terms of number of years the respondent had completed and number of acres cultivated was taken as the measure of farm size. Radio ownership was measured in terms of possession of radio set.

The instruments for measuring mass media exposure behaviour was developed on the lines of Rogers and Svenning (1969). The scales of measures listening behaviour (Badrinarayanan, 1977) and communication behaviour (Murthy and Singh, 1974) were used with slight modifications. The Source utilization behaviour was measured by the scale developed by Nair (1969),. The adoption behaviour was measured by the Adoption Quotient as developed by Jaiswal and Dave (1972). Data has been collected from 150 charcha samithy members using a pre-tested, valid interview schedule. Data statistically analysed using appropriate parametric techniques.

The results revealed that interview was perceived as the best mode of farm broadcasts and karshika mekhala varhtakal was the most preferred farm programme. Among the selected independent variables discussion was the most contributed variable for mass media exposure behaviour. Communication behaviour was influenced mostly by listening behaviour, discussion, mass media exposure behaviour etc. For source utilization behaviour listening behaviour of farmer was the most contributing variable. It was revealed that adoption behaviour of the listener was found to be determined by their communication behaviour.