USE OF MASS MEDIA BY THE FARMERS IN RECEIVING AGRICUTURAL INFORAMTION

Abstract

The main objectives of this study were to determine and describe the use of mass media by the farmers in receiving agricultural information and the individual characteristics of the farmers and also to explore the relationship between the use of mass media and selected characteristics. Data were collected from I 00 farmers of three villages of Ghatail upazila under Tangail district, by using a structured personal interview schedule. Appropriate scales were developed in order to measure the concerned variables. A statistical software package named SPSS was used to analyze the data and Karl Pearson Product Moment Correlation Co­ efficient was used to test the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. The findings revealed that 50 percent of the respondents had medium use, 32 percent had low use, 4 percent had no use and only 14 percent had high use of mass media. Television was found to have more uses followed by agricultural fair, newspaper, radio and poster respectively by the farmers.The findings also revealed that education, farm size, annual family income, agricultural knowledge, organizational participation, cosmopoliteness and innovativeness had significant positive relationship with the use of mass media by the farmers. However, farming experience of the respondents had significant negative relationship while age and farming facilities of the farmers had no relationship with their use of mass media in receiving agricultural information.