Role of Mass media & Photojournalism in Agriculture Extension

1. Presented by:
Ekta Belwal
HHM-2013-011
M.Sc (FN)

2. • Mass media is a relatively new idea
in human culture.
• Mass Media incorporates all those
mediums through which
information is distributed to the
masses.
• Today, mass media is generally
categorised into 7 branches. These
"seven mass media", in order of
their introduction are :
2

3. internet and mobile, are often called collectively as digital media &
radio and TV, as broadcast media.

4. Characteristics of mass media
• Communication is mostly one
way
• Audience has great deal of
choice
• Reach large & vast audience
• Aim messages to attract largest
audience possible
• Influence society & are in
turn influenced by society

5. Functions of Mass media
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Information
Consensus
Entertainment
Symbolic Function
Advertising
Development
– Development communication that
focuses on the needs of the
underprivileged & oppressed & their
socio-economic & cultural interests &
needs.

6. Advantages of Mass Media
• Reaches many people quickly
• Low cost per person reached
Can be used to
Tell people about new ideas & services
Agenda setting & advocacy
Created favourable climate of opinion

7. Disadvantages of Mass Media
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Difficult to make specific to local community
Fixed message
Can be easily misunderstood
Access often difficult
Lacks feedback
Less appropriate for :
 Changing behaviours rooted in culture or reinforced by
social norms
 Promoting empowerment
 Learning practical skills
 Developing skills of informed decision making

8. Mass Media in Agriculture
• Information on agriculture, both crop and livestock was
communicated among farmers from ancient times.
• However, with the development in agricultural research,
need arises to transfer new information and technologies
to the users i.e. farmers.
• To fulfil this need, mass media like newspapers, magazines
radio, TV film and internet play a vital role.
• What we know about the new information on
technologies, public figures and public affairs is largely
dependent upon what the mass media told us about it.
• The major objective of mass media in Agriculture
development is
– to communicate the feasible farm technologies in such a manner to
attract the attention of farmers,
– help them to understand and remember the message and
– ultimately facilitate them to take appropriate decision.

9. Introduction
• Print medium was the first to be used as mass
media for communicating the information.
• first newspaper to be published was ‘Bengal
Gazette’ also called ‘Calcutta General Advertiser”
in 1780.
• Since then the use of newspapers and magazines
kept on increasing in terms of their number, variety,
circulation and readership.
• Quite often new newspapers and magazines are
introduced while the older ones change their
pattern of presentation.
• A newspaper is a publication containing news and
information and advertising, usually printed on lowcost paper called newsprint. It may be general or of
the special interest, most often published daily or
weekly.

10.  News paper
 Magazine ( general & public
interest)
 Journals
 Books
 Other: are leaflets, circular letters,
news letters, folders, banners, wall
news papers.

11.  Gives extensive coverage to a
large no. of items of interest
 Can be read by literate audience.

12. Print media in
Agricultural Development
• Among the several mass media, newspaper
and farm magazine are commonly used.
• cheap & affordable; read as per convenience.
• permanent medium, permanently imprinted
message with high storage value making them
suitable for reference and research also.
• ↑ rate of literacy in the country offers new
promises & prospects for utilising print
medium as a means of mass communication.

13. Contd..
• plays a vital role in the communication of Agri. Info.
among the literate farmers on improved agricultural
practices and also to inform the public in general
• Agricultural journalism is of recent origin in India.
It came into existence just 5 decades ago. It is now
gaining importance, particularly after the
establishment of AUs.
• Technical info. needs to be provided to the farmers
at the right time and in the right way, so that the
productivity can be increased.
• India has farm magazines in every state, published
mostly in local languages.
• Agricultural department also encourages the
publishing of such farm magazines particularly
through farmers association.

14. Popular magazine published from
India
• Indian Horticulture (semi-technical, bi-monthly magazine
in English)
• Indian Farming(monthly magazine in English)
• Kheti(monthly magazine in Hindi)
• Phal Phool(bi-monthly magazine in Hindi)
• Krishika(a half-yearly peer reviewed research journal in Hindi)
• Horticulture today
• Agriculture Today
• Agro India
• Modern Kheti
• Liesa India
• Farm Food

15. Contd..
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ICAR Reporter, English,
Quarterly
ICAR News, English, Quarterly
ARIS News, English, Quarterly
Krishi Chayanika, Hindi,
Quarterly
Tamil
• Pasumai Vikatan, Fortnightly
• Naveena Velaanmai, Monthly
Telulgu
• ANNADATA, Monthly
Kannada
• KRISHIK BANDHU, Monthly
• Adike Patrike, Monthly
• Sahaja Samrudha
• Siri Samruddhi
• Sujatha Sanchike, Monthly
• Sahaja Saaguvali, Bi-Monthly
• Krishi Mithra, Monthly
Malayalam
• Bhoomi,

16. Contd..
• Among the various types of mass media
sources, newspapers can support
extension by publishing news of various
extension activities, guidance and
recommendations, achievements,
market news, research findings,
successful achievements and problem
faced by farming community etc.
• The green revolution and white
revolution could not have been come
about so quickly without the use of
media like print media and radio.

17. 2. Internet
(World wide web)
• Information Super Highway &
The Network of Networks
• Helps in
– getting info
– Disseminate info by publishing, extension & teaching
– Compile info

18. Uses of Internet
• knowledge sharing
between the
agriculture research
institutes,
• access to
international best
practices,
• information sharing
on public domain,
• online trading and
import-export.

19. Web-based ICT approaches
• Unilever’s iShakti
– they are attached to kiosks, known as telecenters
• aAQUA
– that work entirely online
wide range of web portals that act as information repositories
• TAU’s Agritech web portal.
• AGMARKNET
– launched during the 9th five-year plan, provides marketing information on the
latest commodity prices from 2,800 major agricultural produce wholesale
markets.
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Agropedia
AGRISNET,
DACNET,
e-Krishi,
the agribusiness portal Agriwatch,
iKisan by the Nagarjuna fertilizer group (Saravanan 2010)
e-krishaksahyogi by ISAP

20. e-krishaksahyogi by ISAP
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envisaged to address the problem of accessibility of useful and timely information by
small and marginal farmers.
ISAP is carrying out this pilot of e-krishaksahyogi in Jaipur district of Rajasthan, where it is
working with 5000 vegetable growers
This is an applet on tab offering gateway to solution of farm-specific queries of small
farmers.
Farmers can learn cropping techniques with modern technologies using high definition 3D animation videos or multi-media slideshow videos. Also, they can access other relevant
and timely information in the audio, pictures and text format.
Besides, Farmers can also do live conferencing with experts and can watch live auctioning
of vegetables in mandis by using tablets with data access through 3 G technology.
This initiative helps saving their time as well as cost of traveling and enables them to
exchange information on real time basis.
This is a modest effort by For this, ISAP has been actively supported by Wireless Reach
Initiative of Qualcomm.
Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach initiative is a strategic program that brings wireless
technology to underserved communities globally.

21. Anytime, Anywhere Mobile
• Mobile phones are multifunctional devices.
• Extension can reach more clients through
mobile-based learning platforms—textual or
richer platforms, such as video—that provide
tips to farmers to improve agri- cultural skills
and knowledge.
• MMS, GPRS, WAP & GPS can also be utilised
effectively for extension.

22. Various Roles for Mobiles in Agriculture
GOAL
Education and
awareness
METHOD
Information provided via mobile phones to
farmers and extension agents about good
practices, improved crop varieties, and pest
or disease management
Commodity prices and Prices in regional markets to inform decision
market information
making throughout the entire agricultural
process.
Data collection
Applications that collect data from large
geographic regions.
Pest and disease
Send and receive data on outbreaks.
outbreak warning &
tracking

23. Benefits
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Get you connected To markets
Getting better prices
Increasing yield
Getting advices from experts
Get connected to Kisaan call centres
Impact on adoption (Fischer et.al, 2009); De Silva et.al (2010)
•Important role to improve adoption of technologies at early stage
•
Improves social and business network and help in faster
spread of knowledge and technology.

25. • Rapid expansion of Mobile phone penetration in
rural India(1.4 units per 100 people in 1995 → 51
units, or 1 per 2 persons, currently).
• initiatives using mobiles to communicate
information directly to farmers;
– IKSL (IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd. in collaboration with
Airtel)
– Mandi on Mobile (BSNL and Uttar Pradesh Marketing
Board)
– Reuters Market Light &
– Nokia Life Tools.

26. Contd..
Most of these approaches provide market information
through SMS or voice messages, or question-and-answer
capabilities. To date there has been little evaluation of the
impact of these services on farm production.
• Other projects, such as e-Sagu and Lifelines, also use mobile
phones in combination with computing technology to provide
expert advice based on farmer queries.

28. Nokia life Tools : Agriculture
• Agriculture information in 18 local
languages providing
• market prices (up to 3 crops in 1-3 nearby
markets per subscription),
• daily weather forecasts,
• news and
• advice (including agronomy advice for
select crops, best practices, location-based
agriculture news, hyper-localized advice,
and other information).
• Market prices are collected from over 9,000
local markets on a daily basis for over 400
crops & commodities and crop advice is
managed by a team of agricultural experts.

30. • Photojournalism is an area
of photography dedicated
to taking accurate shots of
current events.
• The basic mission of a
photojournalist is to take
pictures to accompany a
news story (whether it is
broadcast or published in
a newspaper).

31. is the documentation of
events or people through photographs that tell a
story.
can fall under all subjects of
photography but the image needs to be news
worthy to end up being published.

32. Two Types of Photojournalism
• The first type is where an image is used to
illustrate a story.
• The second is where an image is used to tell a
story without any words. One single image may
be used or as many as ten images are often
used in magazines.

33. Goal of Photojournalism
• Selecting story telling photographs that can convey the
fullest, most accurate sense of the situation photographed
• Engage the heart and mind of a viewer with a compelling
version of truth that results from bearing witness or a
situation or event.
• Photojournalism pictures attempt to capture the viewer’s
attention and emotion to entice him to continue listening to
or reading about the story.

34. • The picture in the news attracts the readers & arouses much interest on
the special subject or the event.
• A picture always speaks for itself & when it is published in the
newspaper/ journal with a Suitable caption, it creates beauty of the
same.
• “One picture is worth thousand words”
• Helps to cut down the length of the
article.
• Those who read slowly can easily grasp
the meaning with the help of the
pictures.
• Pictures are a universal language & help
all get the meaning correctly.
• Realistic; Communicate emotions mainly.
• Makes the layout attractive

35. • Must tell a story
• Should have one central or dominating
point of interest
• Should be pleasing to the eye
• Should be clear in details & have contrast.
• Should not have meaningless background.
• Caption must be given the present tense.
But if the reference is to some past
action, then it can be given in past tense.
• Should be carefully planned & selected to
form an interesting story having a great
communication value.
• A meaningful picture story must be
planned with a central theme or idea.
In Agriculture & allied field Extension, a picture story can be used to describe
‘then & now’ and ‘with & without’ type of subjects

36. Photo Captions or Cutline or
Legends
Cutline are a few lines of text used to explain or elaborate on
published photograph.
• Photos engage the eye, captions should engage the mind
• A way to go beyond what the viewer can already see
• It all starts with the photographer who was there and
captures the moment

37. photojournalist v/s photographer
• Photographers take
pictures of nouns (people,
places and things).
• These nouns can be
standard photos of
people (portraits), places
(proposed zoning areas or
construction sites) and
things (name it).
• A journalist tells stories.
• Photojournalists shoot
action verbs ("kicks,"
"explodes," "cries," etc.)
• Photojournalists do shoot
some nouns
• A photojournalist takes
the best of both and locks
it into the most powerful
medium available frozen images.

38. Noun

39. The Most Important Skill for a
Photojournalist
Anticipate
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which picture will tell the story best.
whom you need to focus on.
when the best picture will emerge.
where the main action will go or take place.
your positioning.
the emotion
how you will capture the image.
the personal preparation you’ll need
the time you have.

41. “It is one thing to photograph people. It is
another to make others care about them by
revealing the core of their humanness.”
- Paul Strand (American Photographer, 1890-1976)
Photo taken by ZORIAH photojournalist

42. concl
usion

43. References
• Mitra P. K and Jana L. B; Farm
Journalism, 2005. Agrotech Publishing
Academy, Udaipur.
• Kumar Dileep,Kadian S. K and Garhwal P. O;
Mass Communication in Agriculture
Extension,2012. Satish serial publishing
House, Delhi.