Picturing the Underserved Audience: Photovoice as Method in Applied Communication Research

The use of photographs in sociology and anthropology has grown over the last half of the 20th century, leading to various photo-based research methods that are intended to aid in building and enriching participant narratives. One specific photo-based method, known as photovoice, was developed for the purposes of enabling community members to capture photographs themselves in order to gain a deeper understanding of participant culture. In addition, it has the ability to visually portray and share experiences and knowledge about issues that otherwise would be difficult to explain through in-depth interviews alone. This professional development paper demonstrates the value of incorporating photovoice into a multi-method research project in the field of applied communications for the purposes of gaining valuable insights into the lived experiences of underserved audiences. Drawing from a larger study examining the culture of participants within the Extension-led Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP), the results and discussion demonstrate that photovoice helps to function as a checkpoint in knowledge production and ways of knowing on behalf of the researcher. In addition, photovoice as method demonstrates an effort that can improve and diversify the field of applied communication research, especially as it relates to the National Research Agenda’s priority of addressing vibrant and resilient communities

Expo Milano 2015: The Overview, Issue, and Future for Agricultural Communicators

Expo Milano 2015 was an international agricultural event to promote and discuss the issue of food sustainability around the world. Two agricultural communication researchers attended the event in summer 2015 to better understand the world’s perspective of the prominent issues facing the agricultural industry and how other countries were addressing the issues. The Expo took place in Milan, Italy, and featured 140 countries and their perception on agriculture and food in their respective country. While the event was impressive, the issues purported to be the focus of the event (agriculture sustainability and food insecurity) were rarely addressed in each country. Rather, the countries focused on culture and how food impacted their culture and customs. Events like these offer agricultural communicators the opportunity to join the discussion of how the issues of food sustainability and insecurity can be positively impacted by agriculture technology and research; however, it may be only through the formation of meaningful and collaborative relationships with groups and organizations outside of the traditional agricultural industry that agricultural communicators will be invited to join the conversation. These relationships may need to be cultivated to show respect and mutual bene t for both the organization and the agricultural industry for long-term impact for the expansion of opportunities for agricultural communicators

The Development and Validation of a Personal Agency Scale Based in the Community Capitals Framework

Used in a variety of community contexts and needs, the Community Capitals Framework (CCF) is an analytical tool to holistically examine the complex and unique characteristics that exist at the local level. While CCF—which focuses on social, human, cultural, political, natural, financial, and built capitals—has been used to collect community information to identify and assess suitable programming efforts, a gap currently exists in the literature providing agricultural and extension educators with the tools necessary to examine CCF characteristics, both at the community and individual levels. Designed as a pilot study targeting six counties in [STATE], this research developed a personal agency scale that was based on the seven capitals and intended to measure individuals’ perceived ability within a community. Internal structure validity was established by analyzing the response distributions of the individual items, evaluating internal consistency, and conducting exploratory factor analyses of the hypothesized latent variables. These results indicate that such a scale has potential to serve as a baseline set of data when considering program design, implementation, and evaluation purpose

Interactive Infographics\u27 Effect on Elaboration in Agricultural Communication

In public health, politics, and advertising, interactive content spurred increased elaboration from audiences that were otherwise least likely to engage with a message. This study sought to examine interactivity as an agricultural communication strategy through the lens of the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Respondents were randomly assigned a static or interactive data visualization concerning the production of peaches and blueberries in Georgia, then asked to list their thoughts in accordance with Petty and Cacioppo’s thought-listing measure. Respondents significantly exhibited higher elaboration with the interactive message as opposed to the static, extending the results of past research in other communication realms to agricultural communication as well. This increase in attitude and cognition encourages agricultural communicators to pursue the use of more interactive elements in their messaging

Teaching Convergence in 21st Century Undergraduate Agricultural Communication: A Pilot Study of Backpack Multimedia Kits in a Blended, Project-Based Learning Course

Twenty-first century agricultural communication students are expected to have an increasingly diverse set of skills when they graduate.Expertise is expected in: writing, editing, design, marketing, media relations, event planning, interpersonal communication, digital development, e-publications, online video, mobile applications, podcasting, and social media.This expansion of needed skills is due in no small part to the proliferation of communication channels and convergence of media platforms today. In order to continue preparing students for professions in agricultural communication, it is imperative that the curricula reflect current industry needs and available technology. In this article, one approach for expanding curricula to incorporate these newer technologies by implementing backpack multimedia journalism kits for science communication is discussed. The kits were developed to address these criteria: 1) students needed opportunities to gain a variety of broad technological skills, 2) the technology had to be mobile and cost effective, and 3) the technology needed to be able to produce a variety of content across a variety of platforms. The mobile multimedia kits included iPad-minis and video accessories. Through an agricultural communication blended-learning, project-based undergraduate course, the authors tested the effectiveness of the kits, as well as researched students’ perceptions and experiences with the course design and mobile communication technologies. The results of the study showed students valued the selected technology and gained targeted video production skills. Although students’ liked the course design, they experienced challenges with course requirements, time management, and using the technological audio recording components

Generation Z and CRISPR: Measuring information processing using animated infographics

CRISPR gene-editing technology, as it relates to food, has the potential to revolutionize the agricultural industry. Currently, 40% of global consumers are categorized as Generation Z. Gen Zer’s are digital natives and use Instagram to discover new products; therefore, it is important to understand the most effective communications strategies to engage this segment of consumers with scientific information that will allow for informed decision-making regarding CRISPR technology. Infographics are a form of data visualization that can be used in a static or animated form. Previous studies have shown animated infographics to garner greater attention from respondents. Using the Heuristic-Systematic Processing Model (HSM) and the Risk Information Seeking and Processing (RISP) model as the guiding theoretical framework, this study used an experimental design to investigate respondents’ information recall ability of CRISPR information using infographics. The results from the current study indicated respondents heuristically processed the information about CRISPR displayed to them through an infographic, as statistically significant differences were measured between the animated infographic treatment group and the respondent’s recall ability on only 2 of the 3 recall questions asked. The exploration of demographic characteristics found a moderating effect on recall ability for only the static treatment group and political ideology. Key findings in the current research suggest the implementation of animated infographics may aid in more effective agricultural messaging if kept to one point of information and have a source of credibility

Communication Channel Preferences: A Descriptive Audience Segmentation Evaluation

For over 70 years the use of opinion leaders in a two-step communication process has been employed and validated. However, despite the accepted importance of communicating with opinion leaders as a means to cascade information to opinion leaders’ networks of influence there have been few empirical studies specifically examining agricultural and natural resource opinion leader communication channel preferences, particularly from an audience segmentation perspective. The results reported in the study capitalize on previous research data examined from a unique perspective. Specifically, communication channel preferences were analyzed according to opinion leader self-reported demographic categories serving as audience segments. Associations between sex, age, level of employment, level of education and geographical region and communication channel preference were analyzed. The results of the study are descriptive and foundational in nature. Overall, the results indicate a dedicated web page or blog is the most preferred communication channel across all audience segments and conference calls are the least preferred communication channel across the majority of audience segments. The Facebook group communication channel had the most variability between audience segments and the LinkedIn group communicational channel had the largest observed effect sizes among audience segments

Arguing for Argument’s Sake? Exploring Public Conversations around Climate Change on Twitter

Audience-facilitated information flow has become the new norm created by a public divergence from traditional media sources. Mobile device advancements and partnerships have changed how audiences view news media and the sources relied upon to obtain information. With these advancements, social media users have become primary information providers and information gatekeepers. Twitter specifically has become a news media platform for some based on its effectiveness in facilitating information flow and triggering reorganization as it provides a platform for collaboration and coordination. Despite widespread acceptance of the threat climate change poses by the scientific community, it is still a topic of contention on social media. Climate conversations are typically approached with an us versus them mindset with us being used as representation of the communities to which audiences belong. The communities one belongs to typically follows social media users social, political and environmental ideologies. Walton’s theory of argument or inference schemes served as the theoretical framework for this study. Argument schemes represent common arguments and special context arguments, in this case scientific argumentation. Walton’s argument from ignorance was used as a framework for the study. The argument states that if there has been a thorough search through the knowledge base then concrete proof of a fact would exist. The findings indicated social media may be a useful tool when exploring climate change conversations through a sociopolitical lens and additional research is needed to closely examine how political ideologies, global location, and different environmental topics impact issue awareness and beliefs

Exploring Source Credibility when Communicating about Agricultural Science on Twitter

Universities must strategically communicate agricultural science to effectively reach millennials skeptical of agricultural innovations and constantly assessing the credibility of online information. Universities are trusted information sources and must maintain credibility on social media platforms such as Twitter, used by millennials to receive and share information. Source credibility seeks to understand message source and recipient characteristics that influence recipients’ perceptions of a source’s expertise and trustworthiness. The purpose of this study was to explore differences in engagement when specific factors affecting source credibility were emphasized when communicating with millennials about agricultural science on Twitter. The purpose was accomplished by describing the level of engagement and the differences in engagement observed between perceived gender, race, and age of university scientists. Over seven months, researchers wrote press releases about published journal articles authored by two or more diverse, university-affiliated scientists. They published multiple tweets about each release, with the only difference being the scientists’ headshots. Scientists were categorized as perceived male versus female, White versus Non-White, and older versus younger. Descriptive analysis of engagement metrics from 32 tweets found those with females performed better than those with males. Non-White scientist tweets performed better with the exception of engagement rate. Tweets featuring younger scientists received more engagement than older. The exploratory results implied tweets featuring young, Non-White females may elicit higher engagement. Future studies should examine if engagement metrics are correlated with source credibility dimensions. Strategically featuring diverse scientists in research communication may be utilized to build engagement in universities’ social media

BrainWAVE: A flexible method for noninvasive stimulation of brain rhythms across species

Rhythmic neural activity, which coordinates brain regions and neurons to achieve multiple brain functions, is impaired in many diseases. Despite the therapeutic potential of driving brain rhythms, methods to noninvasively target deep brain regions are limited. Accordingly, we recently introduced a noninvasive stimulation approach using flickering lights and sounds ( flicker ). Flicker drives rhythmic activity in deep and superficial brain regions. Gamma flicker spurs immune function, clears pathogens, and rescues memory performance in mice with amyloid pathology. Here, we present substantial improvements to this approach that is flexible, user-friendly, and generalizable across multiple experimental settings and species. We present novel open-source methods for flicker stimulation across rodents and humans. We demonstrate rapid, cross-species induction of rhythmic activity without behavioral confounds in multiple settings from electrophysiology to neuroimaging. This flicker approach provides an exceptional opportunity to discover the therapeutic effects of brain rhythms across scales and species