International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2012
ISSN 2250-3153
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Mass Media utilization pattern of farm Women
Deepika Sharma
[email protected]
I. INTRODUCTION
I
ndia lives in villages and among the total village, a large
number are situated in remote areas where little developmental
activities have taken place because of several factors viz,
illiteracy, poverty, lack of information facilities etc.
The development of rural areas is the first challenge for the
nation builders. The major thrust of rural development has been
towards changing behavior of village people in terms of
knowledge, skills and attitudes.
Contribution of women in modern times in unlimited both at
home and farm. They have been a definite strength in the nation's
building process. Women possess have knowledge of the latest
technologies which could be made possible with use of various
mass communication channels. In Our country we have a vide
range of mass media ranging from satellite broad casting to the
print media. These media include newspaper, magazines, books,
radio, television etc.
Mass media could enter the calculus of development and offer
the great possibilities for effective action through its capability of
disseminating technical expertise and useful knowledge among
millions of villagers, particularly cultivators living in far flung
areas. It aims at promoting national integration, dissemination of
message, educating people, providing healthy entertainment and
dissemination of essential knowledge to stimulate agricultural
production.
Mass media is undoubtedly an important tool in bringing about
large scale directed social change and modernization in
developing nation for transmitting knowledge, disseminating
facts and directing various emotional appeals to influence public
opinion. The mass media has assumed vital importance in the
economic, social development of the nation. The simplest effect
of the mass media is to make people aware of the events, persons
or possibilities beyond their direct experiences. Efforts with all
the possible media of communication are being made in order to
reach rural masses with varied characteristics, living in different
parts of the country.
Mass media have been termed as hidden persuades which
selectively reflect social reality and thereby create a reality in the
minds of audience.
Among the mass media, radio is the cheapest, fastest and
farthest reaching mass medium, successfully cutting the barriers
of literacy and distance.
Television is now a very popular and effective means of
information, communication, entertainment and instruction.
Reading literature is an important part of self study,
newspaper/farm magazine are the commonly used media for
dissemination of news and current events. They also serve as
educational and entertainment media apart from disseminating
agricultural information to the farmers. Mass media play a
significant role in development. It can establish the climate in
which development can take place. It plays a vital role in making
the people in the urban as well as rural areas to realize the need
for adopting new practices.
Thus, mass media bring the voice of the nation to the village,
creating a sense of working towards common economic and
national goals; they spread literacy and new skills, they promote
an attitude of mind conducive to economic growth, which
involves the orientation of future prosperity. A good amount of
work is though available regarding impact of Mass media on
farmer's attitude, gain of knowledge, but very few researches are
available on mass media utilization by rural women and this type
of study is new to this area. Women have a key position in the
family. Hence transfer of appropriate home and farm
technologies to rural women is of immense importance.
Although there has been tremendous development and expansion
of mass media, we still do not know to what extent rural women
utilize these media, thus present study is an effort/attempt to
assess mass media exposure of farm women and factors
associated with it.
II. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
- To document the availability of important mass media in the
villages under study.
- To assess the utilization pattern of the mass media by the
respondents.
- To measure the association between the utilization pattern of
mass media by the respondents and the selected independent
variables.
- To study the reasons for not using the mass media by the
respondents.
III. METHODOLOGY
100 farm women from five villages namely, charkada,
Himatsar, Madia, Somalsar and Mukam of five Gram Panchayats
charkada, Himatsar, Bikasar, Mukam and Somalsar of Nokha
Panchayat Samiti of bikaner district, Rajasthan, India were
selected randomly for the study.
Interview method was used for data collection. Interview
schedule was developed consisting of structured questions
keeping in view the objectives of the study. Background
information was collected through an interview schedule which
includes information about age, education, landholding, income,
family type, social participation and source of information of the
respondents. Other section of the tool dealt with the questions to
obtain information regarding the availability of mass media, the
utilization pattern and reasons of not using the mass media by the
farm women in relation to the mass media, namely newspaper,
magazine, radio and television. Data was collected by conducting
personal interview at the residence of the subjects.
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International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2012
ISSN 2250-3153
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results are presented in the following headings:
a) Background information1. Majority of the respondents were of younger age group
(40%) and were illiterate (60%).
2. Majority (56%) of the respondents has marginal land
holding. (56%), belong to low income group (50%),
having joint families (56%), and had no membership in
any organization.
3. Thirty Six percent of the respondents get
information/have neighbours as source of information.
b) Availability of mass media1. Majority of the respondents (60%) possessed radio sets.
Only 25% of respondents subscribe newspapers (Danik
Bhaskar) of Hindi language, 30% were having T.V. and
only doordarshan channel was available.
2. Magazine was not subscribed by any respondent as they
were very busy in their farm and home from morning to
evening. The respondents reported that they were
illiterate and they can't make use of them.
c) Utilization pattern of Mass Media1. Majority (56%) of respondents ranked regular using of
mass media at first position, followed by never (40%),
sometimes (30%) and occasionally (25%).
2. Regarding the purpose of using mass media,
entertainment was ranked highest (89%), followed by
time pass (50%), seeking new information and
entertainment (26%) and only for seeking information
(10%).
3. Majority of the respondent gave highest rank to seeking
agriculture information as the main reason for using
mass media (53%), followed by exchange of
information (51%), it has become a necessity (49%),
and knowledge increase (38%).
4. Majority of the respondents ranked non-availability of
free time at first position regarding the constraints in
using mass media (98%).
d) Association between the utilization pattern and
selected independent variables.
1. Education and social participation had significant
relationship with utilization pattern of newspaper
whereas age, land holding and family type has no
significant correlation with the utilization pattern of
newspaper.
2. Age, education, land holding, family type and social
participation had non- significant correlation with the
utilization pattern of both Radio and Television.
e) Reasons for not using the mass media
1. Majority of the respondents (39%) do not feel the need
to use the newspaper, whereas 13% of the respondents
feel that it is wastage of time to use Radio.
2. However, Television was not used by majority of the
respondents (20%) as it was not available at their
residence.
V. CONCLUSION OF THE STUDY
On the basis of the above results obtained from the study, it
can be concluded that most of the respondents were of younger
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age group, illiterate having marginal land holding and have no
social participation in any organization.
Majority of the respondents possessed ratio sets (60%) and
only 30 percent were having T.V. newspaper was subscribed by
(25%) of the respondents.
Regarding the utilization pattern of the mass media, half of the
respondents were categorized as medium utilizers and on an
average 20% respondents were among the high utilizers of all
mass media under study. Entertainment related programs were
ranked highest by the majority of the respondents.
Major constraints in using mass media was non-availability of
free time, followed by use of technical word and language.
VI. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Findings of a Study conducted by Hasan and Sharma A,
(2011), reported that 90% of urban women read newspaper
for taking information, news and for the entertainment.
Almost 65% of the respondents read magazine sometimes
and 10% read it regularly.
Study conducted by Roy et. al (2010), revealed that more
than half of the respondents were found to view television
regularly, 38% and 44% of the rural youth listened to all
India Radio programes regularly and occasionally
respectively. Farm demonstration, extension materials
(leaflets, posters) and farm journals were rarely consulted by
rural youth.
Findings of the Study of Emmanuel (2010), revealed that
among the rice farmers, radio was used by 83%, T.V. was
used by 39% and mobile phones were used by 55% of the
respondents.
Findings of Study by Singh (2002) reported that channels
which were most utilized by the farmers were group
discussion, television, radio and newspaper respectively. He
further reported that majority of farmers used neighbours
(83%), private agencies (25%) and friends (50%) as source
of information.
A study done by Mittal (2002), reported that there was a
significant impact of age on viewer ship of T.V. and duration
of viewing. There was also significant impact of type of
family and type of house on T.V. viewing pattern and
frequency of T.V. viewing.
Prameela and Ravichandran (2001), in their study found that
lack of interest (68.66%), domestic responsibility (61.33%),
small type farms (58.66%), and cultural norms (53.33%)
were expressed as barriers for not using the mass media.
Lack of skill in operating T.V. and radio (18.66%), lack of
communication amenities (13.33%), lack of regularity in
getting farm magazines (15.33%) and lack of education
(8.66%) were the barriers for less than one-third of the
respondents.
Results of a Study of Shukla (2000) reported that the major
source of information for rural people is the radio (87%).
About 95% people reported that they are used to listening the
radio either regularly or occasionally, urban masses use all
types of channels of information but television and
newspapers are the tow most important but television and
newspapers are the two most important sources of
information.
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International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2012
ISSN 2250-3153
Study by Jangir (1999) revealed that the personal
characterization viz, age, education and size of land holding
were significantly associated with the knowledge of level of
respondents, whereas size of family was found to be
associated non-significantly with knowledge level of
respondents.
Khurana and Kapoor (1998), while studying "Krishi
Darshan" (Rural telecast) found that rural women did not let
their household work suffer at the cost of T.V. viewing.
Evening social interaction of the respondents (84.4%) was a
deep rooted habit and Krishi Darshan was not appealing
enough to alter there daily routine.
Srivastava et. al (1996), concluded that most of the
respondents were daily reader of newspapers and magazines,
listeners of radio and viewing of T.V. Mass Media exposure
had helped in changing old values of women and improving
their social status.
Findings of a Study done by Gupta (1992), on ''Mass Media
and Social Change'', revealed that the maximum number of
respondents preferred the radio listening (73.33%), than
reading the newspapers (66.67%) and television viewing
(60.00%).
According to a Study done by Patil and Namasivayam
(1990), revealed that about 83% of the respondents subscribe
newspaper and 17% do not subscribe. The high percentage of
newspaper purchase indicates that the level of literacy is
high.
A Study done by Bette et al. (1990) reported that radio
broadcasts and general farm magazines were the two
marketing information sources most frequently citied as
useful. Radio and T.V. broadcasts were more frequently cited
as the most useful source of marketing information by older
farmers and operators of small farms.
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