Effectiveness of Electronic Media for Sustainable Agricultural Development: An Investigation into TV Programmes

Abstract

The study was taken to assess the effectiveness of electronic media for sustainable agricultural development, to explore the relationship of 22 independent variables with the effectiveness of electronic media for sustainable agricultural development and to dig out the contribution of independent variables to the effectiveness of electronic media for sustainable agricultural development. Data were collected from 187farm family heads selected randomly from 1249 farm family heads of six villages of two different Union Parishad (UP) under two Upazila of Kurigram district. Primary data were collected from the farm family heads during January 2011 to June 2011 by a structured interview schedule. Selected 22 characteristics of farmers were considered as the independent variables and effectiveness of electronic media for sustainable agricultural development was the dependent variable. Variables were measured by appropriately fit measuring scale. Appropriate measuring scales were developed to measure the psychological variables also. Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient (r) was computed to examine the relationships between the concerned variables. The findings showed that almost three fourths (68.45 per cent) of the respondent farmers had the medium effectiveness, less than one fifths (17.65 per cent) had high effectiveness and only 13.90 per cent had low effectiveness to utilize the electronic media for sustainable agricultural development. The findings of correlation revealed that education, family education, training experience, mass media exposure, agricultural knowledge, knowledge about sustainable agriculture, annual income, formal group affiliation/organizational participation, cosmolpoliteness, peer relationship, innovativeness, attitude toward agriculture, attitude toward television had significant positive relationships with the effectiveness of electronic media for sustainable agricultural development, but age, family size, supervision of crop production, farm size, socio-economic status, ownership of agricultural implement, risk orientation and aspiration did not show significant relationship with the effectiveness of electronic media for sustainable agricultural development. Six variables entered into the stepwise multiple regression analysis and results showed that among these variables innovativeness alone contributed more than half (53.3 per cent) of the total variation in predicting the effectiveness of electronic media for sustainable agricultural development. Training, education, sustainable agricultural knowledge, peer group affiliation and agricultural knowledge has also considerable contribution. Path analysis revealed that innovativeness, training, education, sustainable agricultural knowledge, peer group affiliation and agricultural knowledge of the respondents had substantial direct and indirect effect on the effectiveness of electronic media for sustainable agricultural development and were channeled through each other. The problem in relation to effectiveness of electronic media for sustainable agricultural development “unsuitable broadcasting time for farmers”, “limited number of agricultural television programmes”, treatment of viewers towards television only as entertainment equipment”, “available number of channel” and “lack of mechanism to measure feedback” were ranked 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th respectively. The suggestions from the respondents “broadcasting agricultural programmes at suitable time for the farmers”, “increasing number of agricultural television programmes”, “emphasizing the sustainability of agriculture in television programmes”, “ establishing specialized television channel for agriculture” and “counting feedback beside repeated broadcasting of agricultural programmes” were ranked 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th an 5th respectively according to the farmer’s response for the effectiveness of electronic media for sustainable agricultural development. The findings of the study were presented toward media personnel, extension experts, researchers and administrators to take effective action plan for their own field of experiment for the purpose of effective television in sustainable agricultural works.