Producers should pay less attention to the technology of electronic commerce
Instead, they should think of e-commerce as “a new way of doing business, a new way of farming.” So advised a specialist cited in a report that we have added from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation about the impact of e-commerce on agriculture. The report examined what Internet access and e-commerce may mean to farms of various sizes, and to the future of food systems.
Reference: On the ACDC search page, use a title search (Impact of e-commerce) for the full citation. The report was posted on:www.wkkf.org
News from Washington “can’t just be recorded it has to be reported,”
Said Ken Root in a recent issue of Chats newsletter from the National Association of Farm Broadcasters. He was describing challenges that NAFB reporters faced in hunting for answers to tough questions during their annual “Washington Watch” event. In one case, there “wasn’t a single sound bite from a man who is paid not to give you what you want.”
Reference: Use a title search (Farm broadcasters) or author search (Root) for full citation.
Sending wrong messages about food safety.
Television cooking programs show lots of “negative food handling behaviors,” according to results of a study reported in Food Protection Trends. Researchers recorded and reviewed 60 hours of television food and cooking programs aired during June 2002 and 2003. The programs, mostly on Food Network Canada, had been produced in Canada, United Kingdom and United States.
Findings revealed 916 poor food-handling incidents, or about 13 negative behaviors aired for every positive one. Authors identified the most common food safety errors and recommended improvements in television food and cooking programs.
Reference: Use a title search (Spot the mistake) or author search (Mathiasen) for full citation. The abstract was posted on: fsnet-archives, (May 25, 2004).
Despite the unique decentralizing features of the Internet
Governments continue to be capable of controlling information flows in rural development. So indicated the results of field research in Indonesia (1998), Peru (1999) and Vietnam (1998). Robin Van Koert found “the level of interactive use of [electronic media] in rural development appears, to a large extent, to be determined by the state of democracy in a nation-state.” Governments used political or economic restrictions to control information flows.
Reference: Use a title search (Impact of democratic deficits) or author search (Van Koert) for the full citation. The report from First Monday journal was posted at www.firstmonday.org
Lots of NPAC resources.
“AAACE was changed forever by the formation of NPAC,” said Mason E. Miller in a recent issue of ACE Signals newsletter from the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences. He described the remarkable professional development program, National Project in Agricultural Communication, which served ACE members and others from 1953-1960, and beyond.
If you are interested in NPAC we can report that the Agricultural Communications Documentation Center contains much of the material generated from that program. You can identify it through online ACDC searches such as:
- Title search. Use terms such as:
- The First Seven Years, 1953-60
- Written communication training program
- Writers workbook
- Diffusion process
- Guide communication training program
- Campaigns in agricultural extension programs
- Subject search. Use the term:
- “National Project in Agricultural Communication”
- Journal search. Suggested terms:
- AGRICOM
- AgriSearch
- Search
- Communique
How civic journalists may save the media.
Get out and get connected with your communities, the editor of The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington) urged journalists in a speech that we have added to the ACDC collection. Chris Peck described a “coming transformation, perhaps even revolution, in the newsrooms of America’s newspapers, TV stations and online news operations.”
Peck urged journalists to interact and engage with their communities of interest. “We can no longer put out newspapers by phone, e-mail, government reports and unnamed sources,” even in an era of corporate pressures to write “really, really fast.” Peck illustrated the growing complexity of issues by observing, “the ag beat isn’t about tractors anymore but about biogenetic engineering.”
Reference: Use a title search (Transformation from within) or author search (Peck) for the full citation. The speech was posted on: www.pewcenter.org
Like playing in a parade band.
“Telling the cooperative story is like playing in a parade band,” a colleague once told Susie Bullock, executive director of Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA). “The song is the same, but the audience changes as the band moves down the street.”
She made this point in a recent article about how cooperative communicators can deal with the challenges of change, adding that issues cooperatives face and tools communicators use change along with audiences.
Reference: Use a title search (Executive directors) or author search (Trinkl) for the full citation.
1920 salaries of agricultural college editors
Here are results of the first salary survey conducted by the American Association of Agricultural College Editors (AAACE). Findings were reported in mid-1920:
Editors
Range: $2,000-$3,500 a year
Mean: $2739
Assistant editors
Range: $1,200-$2,400 a year
Mean: $1,850
Communicator activities approaching:
July 18-21, 2004
Marketing and Communication Excellence Conference of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) in Columbus, Ohio. For electric cooperative marketers, communicators and member services staff.
Information: www.nreca.org
July 20, 2004
“Driving the focus of primary industries in S.A.” Luncheon meeting Of Rural Media South Australia in Brisbane.
Information: www.ruralmediasa.com
July 23-25, 2004
Professional development program of Agricultural Relations Council (ARC) in Tampa, Florida. This gathering immediately precedes the Agricultural Communications Summit.
Information: www.agrelationscouncil.org
July 25-28, 2004
“Spring break this summer.” Agricultural Publications Summit involves members of the Livestock Publications Council (LPC), American Agricultural Editors’ Association (AAEA), American Business Media – AgriCouncil (ABM) and National Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT). Meeting in Tampa, Florida.
Information: www.ageditors.com
Best regards and good searching.
Please pass along your reactions, suggestions and ideas for ACDC. Feel free to invite our help as you search for information. And please suggest (or send) agricultural communications documents that we might add to this unique collection. Send
- hard copies to:
- Ag Com Documentation Center
- 510 LIAC Library
- 1101 S. Goodwin Avenue
- Urbana, IL 61801
- or electronic copies to:
- docctr@library.uiuc.edu
July 2004