Content Analysis of Agricultural News Coverage in Leading Language Dailies of India A Study of Kannada Language Dailies of Karnataka State

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1 University Journal of Communication April 2009, pp 1-14 Content Analysis of Agricultural Coverage in Leading Language Dailies of India A Study of Kannada Language Dailies of State Dr.Usharani Narayana Ph.D & Dr.Suresh Kumar Ph.D Abstract: Many studies in the past have proved that political writings and reports sell best. Time and again media have been rebuked for not giving priority to development oriented reports. Today in the age of information and knowledge society do you come across newspapers as media that are still obsessed with politics and crime like they did in the latter part of 20 th century or have they changed their priority? This is one of the questions that prompted the researchers to undertake this study to empirically analyze the degree of importance given to agriculture in the columns of newspapers in the regional language press of India. Content analysis was found to be the most appropriate method to undertake this study. A sample of 260 issues of each of the five newspapers was selected from April 2001 to March 2002 amounting to a total of 1300 issues. The year 2001 was considered significant as it was the beginning of the 21 st century and the researcher wanted to study whether the attitude of the newspapers has changed towards development news like agriculture. The main objective of this study is to analyze the quantitative coverage of agricultural news in Kannada dailies. This study corroborates the hypothesis of low coverage of agricultural news with ample evidence. The coverage of agri news during the selected period is comparatively low. The study proves with empirical data that there is abnormal accent on political news consequently relegating the agricultural news to the background. The highest percentage of agriculture news is just 4.61 and that of political news is The lowest 1

2 percentage of coverage of agricultural news is 1.53 and that of political news is illustrating the big void between priority news and non-priority news. The study proves that the coverage of agriculture news is poor and the newspapers have not cared to give even respectable coverage in the opinion page through editorials and articles. Further, the choice of content is also much to be desired as new issues and developments in agriculture do not find place in the pages of language newspapers. There is low visibility of agricultural news in regional language dailies. Introduction: India is described as an agricultural society and farmer is regarded as the backbone of the Indian economy. One of the landmarks of Indian economy is the green revolution However, what does media in general and the print media in particular think? What are the priorities of the newspapers in the agro based economy societies like India? Many studies in the past have proved that political writings and reports sell best. Time and again media have been rebuked for not giving priority to development oriented reports. Today in the age of information and knowledge society do you come across newspapers as media that are still obsessed with politics and crime like they did in the latter part of 20 th century or have they changed their priority? These are few questions that prompted the researchers to undertake this study to empirically analyze the degree of importance given to agriculture in the columns of newspapers in language press in general and Kannada press in particular. This study was undertaken with the objective of analyzing the coverage of agricultural news in Kannada newspapers the language dailies - of the IT bowl of India- the State of. The prominent dailies of Kannada namely, Vijaya, Prajavani, Kannada Prabha, Udayavani and Samyukta were selected for this study. All these newspapers make an adequate representation of the state of. Prajavani is the popular daily of southern where as Samyukta represents northern. Udayavani is predominantly popular in the coastal districts of the state where as Kannada Prabha being a sisterly publication of the 2

3 Indian Express group has a national character. Vijaya has readership throughout the state representing both the south and north regions. Content analysis was found to be the most appropriate method to undertake this study. A sample of 52 issues of each of the five newspapers was selected from April 2001 to March 2002 amounting to a total of 260 issues. The year 2001 was considered significant as it was the beginning of the 21 st century and the researcher wanted to study whether the attitude of the newspapers has changed towards development news like agriculture. The main objective of this study is to analyze the quantitative coverage of agricultural news in Kannada dailies. Total and Ad Area: The purpose of this study is to scientifically analyze the quantitative and qualitative coverage of agricultural news content in five Kannada newspapers of namely Vijaya, Prajavani, Kannada Prabha, Samyukta and Udayavani. The Analysis reveals (Table -1) that the total print area of Kannada Prabha (3,16,058 col.cm ) is comparatively higher than other papers viz., Udyavani (3,12,986 col.cm), Vijaya (3,12,986 col.cm), Prajavani (2,97,762 col.cm) and Samyukta Karnatak (2, 96, 976 col.cm). The survey of total news content shows that Prajavani has given highest percentage (80.27) of space for news content than other newspapers. Vijaya comes second (79.46) followed by Samyukta (79.46), Kannada Prabha (76.1) and Udayavani (70.62) in the total news area. Table -1 Sl.no paper Total Area Area Ad Area 1 Prajavani Vijaya Somyukta Kannada

4 Prabha 5 Udayavani Total and Ad Area in the Kannada Daily papers (Unit of Measurement: Col.cms) The study of space allotted to advertisement shows that Udayavani has highest ad area (29.38) and Prajavani has the lowest ad area (19.73). Kannada Prabha comes second (27.3) followed by Samyukta Karnatak (20.76) and Vijaya (20.54) in the space allotted for ads. The trend observed in the study is Kannada newspapers have increased the number of pages to accommodate ads there by maintaining adequate amount of space for news. Coverage of High Priority : The coverage of prime news content was studied to understand the priority of the Kannada newspapers. Conventionally newspapers have been giving high priority to Political news, crime news and the sports news. Therefore, an attempt was made to know whether there is any change in the preference given to these news categories (Table -2). Table-2 Sl.No. paper Total Space Politics Sports Crime Agriculture Others Number Number Number Number Number 1 Prajavani Kannada Prabha Samyukta Udayavani Vijaya

5 Coverage of High Priority in Kannada papers (Unit of Measurement: Col.cms) The analysis shows that all the five newspapers under study have given highest priority to political news followed by sports and the crime. Among the newspapers, Prajavani has given highest space to Political news (26.82) followed by Kannada Prabha (27.3), Samyukta (27.03), Udayavani (23.76) and Vijaya (25.63). The second priority is given to sports news in Kannada newspapers. Again Prajavani has given highest space to Sports news (9.69 ) followed by Udayavani (8.92), Kannada Prabha (8.54), Samyukta (7.21), and Vijaya (7.46). The third priority area of the Kannada dailies is crime news. Kannada Prabha tops the list with highest coverage of crime news (8.93) followed by, Samyukta (7.21), Udayavani (5.46), Vijaya (5.46) and Prajavani (5.08). The specific aim of this study is to study the coverage of agricultural news in major Kannada dailies. The analysis reveals that Prajavani tops the list with highest coverage of agricultural news (4.61) followed by Vijaya (4.58), Samyukta (2.62), Udayavani (1.53) and Kannada Prabha (1.48). Thus Prajavani and Vijaya comparatively devoted more space than other three newspapers. By and large the agricultural content in all the Kannada newspapers is very low when one compares with the coverage that political news, sports news and crime news received in the same newspapers during the same period (Table -3). 5

6 Comparative analysis of Political and Agricultural Sl.No paper Total Table-3 Politics Agriculture 1 Kannada Prabha Samyukta Prajavani Vijaya Udayavani Comparative analysis of Political and Agricultural in Kannada Dailies (Unit of Measurement: Col.cms) A comparative analysis between agriculture news and political news (Table -3) shows that Kannada prabha devoted highest amount of space to political news (27.3) but devoted lowest percentage of space to agricultural news (1.48). So also Udayavani showing high political news (23.76) coverage but low agricultural news (1.53). Samyukta gave more political news (27.06) but devoted a meagre (2.62) space for agricultural news. Both Prajavani and Vijaya have more political news but very low coverage of agricultural news. Therefore it is proved by the empirical data that newspapers give high priority to political news. Agricultural news is relegated to the background in the total news content. 6

7 Comparative analysis of Sports and Agricultural Table -4 Sports Agriculture Sl.No paper Total 1 Prajavani Udayavani Kannada Prabha Vijaya Samyukta Comparative analysis of Sports and Agricultural in Kannada Dailies (Unit of Measurement: Col.cms) The comparative study (Table - 4) of coverage devoted to agricultural news and sports news gives a dismal picture with sports getting better coverage. However, sport doesn t get the coverage that political news received in the dailies. Nevertheless it got better coverage than agricultural news. Interestingly all the newspapers gave more than 7 of space to sports but none of them gave more than 5 of its space to agriculture denoting that it is not a priority news for the daily newspapers. More pathetic is the fact that both Kannada Prabha and Udayavani gave more than 8 of sports news but gave less than 2 of agricultural news denoting the least significance attached to development oriented news content. Comparative analysis of Crime and Agricultural 7

8 Table -5 Crime Agriculture Sl.No paper Total 1 Prajavani Kannada Prabha Samyukta Udayavani Vijaya Comparative analysis of Crime and Agricultural in Kannada Dailies (Unit of Measurement: Col.cms) Crime news which ranks third in the priority of newspapers was compared with the coverage of agricultural news. The study shows that crime news continues to be the traditional staple diet of the newspapers with Kannada dailies being no exception. Intriguingly Kannada Prabha gives the highest coverage of crime news (8.93) but lowest agricultural news (1.48) portraying a dismal show. Even Udayavani gives more crime news (7.44) but only a meagre (1.53) coverage for agricultural news. However, Vijaya and Prajavani dailies give same degree of importance to both crime and agri news content. Like sports news, crime news also gets more than 5 coverage in all the newspapers at the expense of agricultural news. Analysis of Front Page and Inside Page Coverage of Agriculture : Conventionally, front pages of the newspaper are devoted to political news and advertisements. Most of the time non-political news other than crime and sports are buried in the inside pages. Table -6 8

9 Sl.No paper Total Agri Front Page Other Pages 1 Kannada Prabha Vijaya Udayavani Prajavani Samyukta Coverage of Agriculatural in Front and Insides Pages of Kannada papers (Unit of Measurement: Col.cms) The study reveals (Table -6) that Kannada Prabha which carried lowest percentage of agricultural news surprisingly carried highest news content in its front pages than other newspapers. In contrast, Prajavani devoted least amount of its front pages to agri news and almost 93 of agri stories were published in the inside pages denoting that none of them were lead stories. This is true with other newspapers too illustrating that agri news did not get the prime visibility in the newspapers as majority of them were consigned to the inside pages. Format wise Analysis of Agriculture : Table -7. Sl.N o pap er Total Agri Report Article Editorial Photos Feature & Column Letters to the Editor 1 Prajavani Vijaya

10 Samyukta Udayavan i Kannada Prabha Coverage of Editorials, Articles, Letters to the editor, reports, Photos, Features and Columns on Agriculture in Kannada papers (Unit of Measurement: Col.cms) It is important to study the format of the agri news presentation in the dailies. The study (Table -7), organized agri news content into six categories viz., news reports, article, editorial, photos, features and columns and letters to the editor. The analysis shows that all the newspapers have carried agri news content in the form of news reports. According to the study, feature stories and columns are the second most popular category of agri news presentation. Barring Udayavani all the newspapers have devoted more space to agri feature stories and columns. Samyukta (50.07) has devoted half of its agri news space to features and columns. Prajavani and Vijaya have given importance to features and columns with (47.9) and (38.1) coverage respectively. Articles get third place in the coverage but prove to be less visible than the photographs. Prajavani tops the table with highest photographic coverage (10.61) of agri news followed by Samyukta (8.85), Vijaya (8.3) and Udayavani (7.81). With low space to articles, one can infer that these newspapers did not give importance to serious write ups on agriculture that would have helped in decision making and policy framing by the government. Editorial represents the conscience of the newspaper. It is the institutional opinion of the newspaper on matters of public importance. The study of editorial coverage of these papers shows a negligible quantity of space devoted to the editorials. Samyukta tops the list in devoting highest percentage (2.62) of space to editorials whereas the lowest (0.96) is in Prajavani 10

11 illustrating how newspapers did not find worthy of giving their opinion on significant issues in agriculture. The study of letters written by the readers on agri issues reveals that two newspapers namely Samyukta and Kannada Prabha have not published a single letter on agri issue. However, Udayavani with its lowest coverage of agri news has carried more percentage (7.81) of reader s letters than other newspapers. This shows that readers are interested in agri news but newspapers are not considering it as priority news any longer. Unfortunately, leading Kannada newspapers like Vijaya has chosen to publish a meagre (0.7) quantity of letters on agriculture and it is even very less in Prajavani (0.5). Letters reflect the pulse of the people and their viewpoints are important in shaping public opinion. Content wise Analysis of Agriculture : Sl. No. paper Total Agri Awareness quantity Table-8 Campaign quantity Innovation/Awar ds quantity Modern Technology quantity Others quantity 1 Prajavani Vijaya Samyukta Udayavani Kannada Prabha Coverage of Different Types of Agricultural in Kannada papers (Unit of Measurement: Col.cms) The agricultural news was categorized on the basis of the content (Table - 8) namely news reports meant to create awareness, news campaigns, news of innovation and awards and news of modern technology in agriculture. The analysis reveals that majority of agri content in newspapers were meant to impart information and create awareness. Samyukta has carried highest information related agri news (52.54) followed by Udayavani (48.14), Prajavani (35.11), Kannada Prabha (29.6) and 11

12 Vijaya (23.83). The second category that has received more coverage is the campaign related news where in Kannada Prabha is leading with high coverage (31.99) and Vijaya coming last with least coverage (16.93). pertaining to agri innovations and awards comes as a poor third with low coverage ranging from highest (8.74) in Udayavani to the lowest (1.59) in Samyukta. The last category of news related to modern technology in agriculture shows a pathetic coverage as Samyukta and Udayavani do not carry even a single report showing the apathy of major dailies towards development based stories. Only Kannada Prabha (3.48) gives highest coverage to technology based agri news followed by a very low coverage in both Vijaya (1.92 ) and Prajavani (0.52). Month wise coverage of Agriculture : Month wise analysis of agri news coverage in the selected newspapers makes interesting revelations. Prajavani which has given comparatively highest coverage to agri news than others has devoted more space to agri news in the month of March (6.53). However, it has given consistently high coverage to political news and sports news in all the 12 months of the study period denoting inconsistent coverage to agriculture news. Vijaya has followed suit with consistent coverage of political news and sports news where as the coverage of agricultural news vary from month to month. This paper has given highest coverage to agri news in the month of June (8.08) and lowest coverage in the month of February (1.46). Samyukta that has given lowest coverage to agriculture has given highest coverage to political news (32.41) and more or less maintains the same tempo. However, when it comes to agriculture news this paper has devoted even less than 1 to agri news in February (0.6) and has given highest coverage (4.72) in the month of April. It has consistently given very low coverage to agri news during the entire 12 months of study period. Month wise study of Udayavani shows that it has given consistent coverage to all the priority news content pertaining to politics, sports and crime but has neglected agri 12

13 news steadily. It has given highest coverage (4.06) in the month of September and least coverage in February (0.46). The months of April and July show less than 1 of agri news coverage in Udayavani. The Kannada prabha gives consistently good coverage to political news, sports news and crime news during the entire year of the study whereas the same pace was missing in the case of agriculture news. The month of April gets highest coverage (4.27) and December shows the least quantity (0.55) of agri news. This is the only newspaper that has neglected the agriculture news with lowest coverage than other papers. Obviously the paper has the dubious distinction of giving less than 1 of agri news than other newspapers during most part of the year specifically in the months of February, March, May and August to December,. Qualitative analysis of agricultural news: The qualitative study of the agri content reveals that dailies carried more reports on important issues viz., Neera campaigns, farmer s suicide and acute power shortage for agri pumpsets. All the newspapers barring Kannada Prabha are bringing out a special supplement on agriculture every week. Samyukta brings out Vyapara Okkaluthana (ªÁå ÁgÀ MPÀÌ ÄvÀ À) where as Prajavani publishes a two page supplement called Krishi puravani (PÀÈ ÀÄgÀªÀu), Kannada Prabha do not bring out any special supplement on agriculture like other newspapers but carries feature stories in the business supplement Vetta prabha («vàû Àæ ) under the title Tanu Mana Dana (và ÀÄ ªÀÄ À zsà ). Udayavani brings out a one page agri supplement, Krishi Sampada (PÀÈ ÀA Àz). Vijaya too publishes a weekly two page special supplement on agriculture called Krishi Vijaya (PÀÈ «daiàä). These supplements are mostly brought out in colour in the case of Prajavani and Vijaya papers. The content consists of columns and feature stories of progressive farmers emphasizing more on organic farming and urban experiments in farm lands. However, the hard stories on core areas of agriculture in rural areas and the real problems of the poor and marginal farmers do not get into the columns of newspapers. 13

14 However, there were instances where some newspapers occasionally highlighted the plight of the farmers by giving prominent coverage in their front pages. One such report pertains to a story published in Kannada Prabha on January 14, 2002 highlighting the impact of fall in the procurement price of onions on farmers of North. The other report appeared in Vijaya on September 12, 2001 on the impact of drought on farmers in Raichur district in its front pages prompting the government to take suitable measures to mitigate the sufferings of the poor and distraught farmers. The study has come across positive coverage of agri related news reports on some rare occasions. One such story on the evils of Nusi disease in crops was published devoting more than 40 col.cms of space in both front and inside pages in the issue dated November 18, 2001 in Udayavani. Similar kind of treatment was given to a story pertaining to Crop Diseases by Vijaya in its issue on January 14, On the same day Kannada Prabha too published a positive story related to the Failure of crops due to poor quality of seeds supplied by the Seed Corporation devoting over 100 col.cms in both front and inside pages giving prominent coverage to the burning issue in its front pages. It is also noteworthy that in some instances, some newspapers have published multiple stories on agriculture in front page on a single day. Kannada Prabha which has the dubious distinction of publishing lowest percentage of agriculture news has laid good precedent by publishing three stories of agri news on June 30, 2001 in its front page. The stories are, Farmers worried over the late arrival of Monsoon rains (50 col.cms), FCI agrees to give corn to farmers (30 col.cms) and State moves apex court against irrigation projects of Andhra Pradesh (36 col.cms). This precedent is worthy of emulation by other newspapers. It is only hoped more and more newspapers increase the frequency and quantity of such news items. However, there were occasions when some of the newspapers deliberately buried the farmer s news stories in inside pages. For instance Udayavani published a news report on page 9 of a farmer s suicide due to drought devoting a meager 20 col.cm space. The news value required the paper to publish the story on the front page but the 14

15 newspaper consigned the story to insignificant corner reducing its importance. In another such incident, Samyukta published the story of farmer s suicide on page 10 on August 2, Udayavani published another story entitled the use of endosulpha pesticide leads to cancer on October 7, 2001 in the insignificant corners of the inside pages. Despite high news value these stories were deliberately consigned to the insignificant positions and pages of newspapers illustrating lack of professional and ethical criteria for publishing such news stories. Some of these stories had the potential to become lead stories and deserved greater visibility in the prime positions and pages of newspapers. Perhaps one of the problems of agricultural reporting is lack of training and education among the journalists. The examination of some of the news contents reveal that they are poorly written and some of them fail to provide to adequate information. One such incident relates to a story entitled Amendment to Silk Legislative Act received only 30 col.cms of space and was published in Vijaya on December 20, Such a report requires the reporter to specify what the amendment is about and what are the pros and cons of such a move on silk farmers. But there was hardly any information in the 30 col.cms space that was helpful to the farming community. Prajavani, the paper that gave highest percentage of agricultural news also cut a sorry figure in its issue dated August 18, A story entitled Pest ridden rice crops received meagre 24 col.cms giving inadequate information to the farmers. Such reporting illustrates that there is need to bring in quantitative as well as qualitative improvements in the reporting of agriculture stories. Conclusion: This study corroborates the thesis of low coverage of agricultural news with ample evidence. The coverage of agri news during the selected period is comparatively low. The study proves with empirical data that there is abnormal accent on political news consequently relegating the agricultural news to the background. The highest percentage of agriculture news is just 4.61 and that of political news is The lowest 15

16 percentage of coverage of agricultural news is 1.53 and that of political news is illustrating the big void between priority news and non-priority news. The study proves that the coverage of agriculture news is poor and the newspapers have not cared to give even respectable coverage in the opinion page through editorials and articles. Further, the choice of content is also much to be desired as new issues and developments in agriculture do not find place in the pages of Kannada newspapers. There is low visibility of agricultural news in Kannada dailies. References: 1. George B, Verghese, PROJECT CHHATERA -an experiment in development journalism, Media Asia, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1976 pp Hardt, Hanno Introduction to social theories of the press. In Mass Communication Review Year Book. Vol. 2, pp Hornik,Robert.1988.Devlopment communication:information,agriculture,and Nutrition in the third world. New york: Longman publisher 4. Human Development Report 1996, published by the United Nations Development Program, "human development is the end- economic growth a means". 5. Ishwar Daitota and B.P.Sanjay, The Eighteenth Elephant;Udayavani National Kannada Daily; Manipal; John H.Adler, What have we leraned about development? ( The fund and bank review: Finance and development Washington D.C. Vol 3, NO 3 Sep 1966) 7. Jones, D. E. (1990). Sources of agricultural information. Library Trends, 38(3), Kumar, Shantanu, Uma Sah., Ajay Kumar Sah. (2002). Electronic media for agricultural and rural development. Kurkshetra: a Journal on Rural Development, 50(9), Lerner. D. The passing of tradional socity,1958. Free press, Newyork 10. Mammen Mathew, The agricultural scene-the forgotten factor; MEDIA ASIA,vol,10, Melkote, S. R Communication for Development in the Third World: Theory and Practice.New Delhi, India: Sage Publications. 12..Mody, B Designing messages for development communication: An audience participationbased approach. New Delhi: Sage Publications. 13. Mowlana, H The passing of modernity: Communication and the transformation of society. New York: Longman. 14. Narendra Aggarwal, Agricultural reporting in India -brief overview; MEDIA ASIA, PAGE Radha Vij, Researcher, Journalism for Life: A look at Indian Media Representation of Farmer Suicides Centre for Media Studies (CMS), RESEARCH HOUSE,Saket Community Centre, New Delhi Sharma, V. P. (2003). Cyber extension: Connecting farmers' in India - Some experience. Available at Usha Rani N,.2006: Eductaion Television In India-Challenges and Issues: Discovery Publishing house: New Delhi, India. 16

17 Dr.Usharani Narayana, Professor, Department of Studies in Communication & Journalism,University of Mysore, Mysore, India & Dr.Suresh Kumar Ph.D Freelancer, Mysore, India 17