Content analysis of agricultural training advertisements in Nigerian newspapers

A Oloruntoba,Ef Odedele,Jo Oladeji

doi:10.3329/ijarit.v3i2.17838

Abstract

It is obvious that the use of newspapers is one of the ways through which literate farmers could access agriculture-related information and are acquainted with innovations in agriculture. This study investigated the content of agricultural training advertisements in three Nigerian newspapers: The Guardian, Nigerian Tribune and Daily Times. Using multistage sampling techniques, 240 editions of these newspapers containing 609 advertisements for five years (20012005) were selected. In terms of agricultural subsectoral coverage, 30.3% were on veterinary services while forestry services recorded the least advertisement (4.0 %). The Nigerian Tribune newspaper has the highest coverage of agricultural training advertisements 40.7% compared to the 34.7% and 12.2% for Daily Times and Guardian newspapers, respectively. The result also showed that majority of agricultural training advertisements (81.10%) were placed on the non-prominent pages of the selected newspapers. Chi-Square analysis of association between the categories of agricultural training advertisements in the focal newspapers showed that there is significant relationship in the rate at which the sampled newspapers advertise different category of agricultural training advertisements in the newspapers (p<0.05). Chi square analysis also indicated that there is significant association between the placements of agricultural training advertisements and type of newspapers (p<0.05). This implies that advertisement placement on prominent pages of newspapers is determined by the policy of print media organization which also varies with cost of advertisement. It is therefore recommended that agricultural news items should be given more prominence as a panacea for increased information source to new entrants, especially the literate farmers to encourage farming. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/ijarit.v3i2.17838 Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 3 (2): 12-15, December, 2013

Highlights

Dissemination of different agricultural information are priorities for technological transfer and acquisition of new skills in agriculture especially that literate but less technically sound individuals are engaging in agriculture. Oladeji (1999) posited that the movements of the new entrant who usually have higher education than the traditional farmers, into the farming enterprise have brought about an upswing in the literacy level of the farming audience
Using simple random sampling technique in selecting the months in order to determine the number of editions to be examined, 50% of the months in the five year period were selected for a total of 30 months (6 x 5), 50% of the weeks in the months were selected for a total of 60 weeks (30 x 2), while three days were chosen from Monday to Friday as week days and a day from Saturday and Sunday, that is, weekends
The study concluded that the advertisements of agricultural training placed in Nigerian newspapers were not given adequate coverage and prominence

Summary

Introduction

Dissemination of different agricultural information are priorities for technological transfer and acquisition of new skills in agriculture especially that literate but less technically sound individuals are engaging in agriculture. Oladeji (1999) posited that the movements of the new entrant (literate farmers) who usually have higher education than the traditional farmers, into the farming enterprise have brought about an upswing in the literacy level of the farming audience. Guardian newspaper (Oloruntoba and Olowu, 2001) on agricultural news and stories, visuals and information clues in agricultural advertisements (Oladeji, 1999) but none has focused on agricultural training advertisements in Nigerian newspapers. It is against this background that this study will provide answers to the following questions: What are the content categories of agricultural training advertised in the selected Nigerian newspapers?. What is the nature of placement of agricultural training advertisements on pages of newspapers?

Methodology

Results and Discussion

Conclusion and Recommendations