Courtney Meyers

Feeding the Debate: A Qualitative Framing Analysis of Organic Food News Media Coverage

Consumer interest in organic food has increased in recent years due to concerns over conventional production practices, health standards and environmental protection. Organic food production can be viewed as both an ally and rival of traditional agriculture. Americans tend to be more susceptible to media coverage about production agriculture. Determining how the media frames organic food is important because news frames can determine what becomes salient in conversations from the dinner table to Capitol Hill. This study employed qualitative content analysis methodology to discover how five national newspapers framed organic foods during an 18-month period. Emergent frames included “ethical,” “health,” “production,” and “industrialization.” Emphasis was placed on the ethical and moral reasons to purchase organic food with limited discussion of the scientific evidence for consumer claims of superior quality, safety, and nutrition. Overall, common sources included consumers, industry representatives, and organic farmers. Future research should utilize the identified frames to examine news coverage over a longer time frame and in additional media such as agricultural magazines.

Advocacy in Agricultural Social Movements: Exploring Facebook as a Public Relations Communication Tool

Public relations is the act of building and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships among organizations and people through the use of marketing and promoting strategies to build and maintain a successful public image. Currently, social media (including Facebook) are being adopted as a communication tool in public relations efforts to build relationships with different publics. Facebook is a popular social networking site that has the capability to offer a range of promotional tools and allows users to build relationships. The purpose of this study was to determine how administrators of Facebook groups are utilizing Facebook for promoting their agricultural advocacy campaigns. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with Facebook group administrators who actively contribute to the promotion of a cause by using the social networking site. Results indicated that administrators believe Facebook has been an effective form of communication and that people join their groups primarily to engage in conversations about agriculture and to build relationships with people who share similar interests. Overall, participants were pleased with the outcome of their Facebook groups and offered advice for future practitioners who want to use social media to promote agricultural social movements. The results of this study also led to the development of a model to illustrate how Facebook can be used to promote social movements in agriculture.

Conversations with Gatekeepers: An Exploratory Study of Agricultural Publication Editors' Decisions to Publish Risk Coverage

The United States’ agriculture industry is impacted by numerous f inancial, human, legal, and production risks. These risks are frequently reported in mass media and agricultural publications. Farmers often use agricultural magazines to help them make production decisions and learn about new technology, which both involve some element of risk. Gatekeeping is the process of determining what information is included in media coverage in which editors serve as gatekeepers and make decisions regarding what topics to report. The purpose of this study was to discover how agricultural publication editors, in their role as gatekeepers, make decisions regarding coverage of risk related to agriculture and to explore the forces that influence this coverage. Researchers interviewed seven purposively selected editors of national or regional agricultural magazines. The f indings indicated that the editors conceptualize risk in agriculture differently from how agricultural risks are reported in the mainstream media for the more general public; many emphasized the issues in terms of marketing or f inancial risk. Editors emphasized that they report on risk from an action angle, providing advice or information on how to mitigate the risk. The public’s perception of agriculture, advertisers, and personal topic preferences were cited as influencers of their risk coverage. When covering risk stories, agricultural publication editors prefer journalists who can write well and have an agricultural background or knowledge of the industry. Future research should be conducted to expand on the results from this exploratory study.

U.S. Agricultural Commodity Organizations' Use of Blogs as a Communications Tool

Current communications trends and social media have given individuals and organizations unprecedented opportunities to build relationships with audience members while introducing and encouraging new perspectives. One particular form of social media is blogging, which allows people to share a wider variety of information than other forms of social media. The purpose of this study was to explore how agricultural commodity organizations use blogs as a communication tool. The researchers purposively selected nine U.S. agricultural commodity groups that had an organizational blog and collected data through in-depth interviews. The findings indicated the organizations started blogging because blogs were the newest communication tool they could use to reach new and traditional audiences. The commodity organizations used some online analytics and mentions on other social media outlets to measure blog success, but they did not establish goals for their blog prior to the blog’s launch. The findings offer an understanding of how agricultural commodity organizations are utilizing blogs, which provides insight for others in the agricultural industry who may decide to use this technology.

A Case Study of the Risk and Crisis Communications Used in the 2008 Salmonella Outbreak

The Salmonella outbreak of 2008 was one of the largest foodborne illness outbreaks in the last 20 years. Tomatoes were initially pinpointed as the source of the outbreak, and the tomato industry suffered losses of

Exploring Agriculturalists' Use of Social Media for Agricultural Marketing

100 million in 2008. Eventually the FDA was able to trace the outbreak to imported jalapeño peppers, but this discovery was too late to recover losses for the tomato industry. The purpose of this study was to examine the risk and crisis communication efforts taken by public relations practitioners in the produce industry during the 2008 Salmonella outbreak to determine which efforts were successful and which were ineffective. This qualitative case study used the interviews of nine public relations practitioners in the tomato industry to collect the information needed to fully explore the research objectives of the study. The study found that all of the public relations practitioners attempted to communicate effectively with their audiences despite the negative nature of the 2008 Salmonella crisis. Additionally, the practitioners revealed their thoughts and perceptions about the outbreak, the media, and the communications used during the outbreak, which provided valuable insight into the communication efforts of an organization during a crisis.

From Opposite Corners: Comparing Persuasive Message Factors and Frames in Opposing Organizations' Websites

The Internet has had a significant impact in how agriculturists get their information and how they communicate with consumers. The use of user-generated media, especially social media, now provides agriculturalists free and practically instantaneous channels through which to engage with their audience members. The purpose of this study was to explore agriculturalists’ use of social media for agri-marketing. This study used a qualitative research approach consisting of in-depth interviews with four agriculturalists who met certain criteria: an individual (1) working in agriculture, (2) using several social media platforms, and (3) using social media to market his/her own agricultural operation. Analysis of the interview transcripts identif ied seven emergent themes to address the three research objectives. Findings indicated participants became active using social media to combat dominant negative messages about production agriculture. Participants also discussed how they manage their social media presence and balance responsibilities. Overall, they were positive about the use of social media for their own operations and for the broader agricultural community. Additional analysis indicated some gender differences in regard to social media use. Recommendations for both practitioners and researchers are provided to further explore social media use in agriculture. Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. This research is available in Journal of Applied Communications: https://newprairiepress.org/jac/vol98/iss4/7 Re se ar ch Exploring Agriculturalists’ Use of Social Media for Agricultural Marketing Danielle White, Courtney Meyers, David Doerfert and Erica Irlbeck

Television Journalists' Perceptions of Agricultural Stories and Sources in Texas

The U.S. animal agriculture industry has recently faced increasing pressure from organizations that seek to change or eliminate certain animal production practices. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the persuasive messages factors present on two nonprofit organizations’ websites. The Humane Society of the United States and the Animal Agriculture Alliance have opposing missions with the former advocating for reform in animal agriculture and the latter advocating for stakeholders in animal agriculture. A content analysis of each organization’s website found that the Humane Society’s Factory Farms website had more content overall, more content regarding specific animal agriculture industries, and contained more message strategies indicative of effective persuasion than the Animal Agriculture Alliance. The data suggest that the Humane Society of the United States’ online public relations campaign appeals to both highand lowinvolvement audiences on the topic of animal agriculture, while the Alliance campaign appeals primarily to high-involvement audiences.

Using Facebook as a communication tool in agricultural-related social movements

Agricultural organizations often struggle to have their messages heard on television news. Stories about agriculture often contain interview sources that are sometimes not equipped with the first hand knowledge to answer questions about the subject, leaving agricultural organizations wondering why their experts were not interviewed. The purpose of this study was to explore factors that influence the selection of stories and interview sources for television stories in an effort to improve agricultural organizations’ presence in television news. Fifteen participants from four Texas television markets were interviewed. The data indicate that newsworthiness of agricultural stories depended on market size, with larger markets airing agricultural stories only when highly newsworthy—usually some sort of crisis— events occurred, and smaller markets were more willing to run agricultural stories that could include seasonal stories (harvest, planting, etc.), agricultural innovations, weather’s impact on a crop, or agriculture’s impact on a community. In addition, although opinions on the credibility of certain agricultural sources varied from person to person, governmental sources were considered to be credible in general, with commodity groups, corporations, and interest groups being perceived as a bit less credible. Conclusions were drawn that familiarity and acquaintanceship play a large role in the selection of sources by reporters, and the researchers recommend that agricultural organizations strive to cultivate these relationships to allow for better information transfer.

Agriculturists Personal and Business Use of Online Communication Tools

A social movement is a personal obligation taken on by an individual, due to either a personal experience or responsibility, to pursue action to implement a change in a community or society. Facebook is a social networking device in which users interact through conversations, and build relationships by networking with other users. Facebook groups are created as part of a smaller community within the social networking site and focus on particular interests or beliefs about certain issues. The purpose of this study was to determine why individuals use social media, specifically Facebook, to communicate information in social movements related to agricultural issues. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with Facebook group administrators who actively contribute to the promotion of an agricultural-related social movement. Results indicated that Facebook was a beneficial communication tool to help the social movements reach more individuals. The Facebook group administrators were motivated to become involved with the social movement due to personal experiences. Although Facebook is the primary method used to reach target audience members, the participants said they use a variety of other communication channels. Additional research should explore other social movements to determine the impact social media has on communication efforts.