Mass Media Exposure among the Farm Women in Sub-Himalayan Region of India

Abstract

Mass media is the major agricultural information source and farm women are the major agricultural human resources in India. It is observed from the different studies that farm women were exposed to different mass media sources for different types of information. However, it is important to know the influence of these mass media sources on the agricultural information network output of the farm women. In light of this, a study was undertaken on the influence of mass media exposure on the agricultural information network output in terms of knowledge of the farm women. The study was conducted in the North Bengal region of West Bengal from 2017 to 2020. Ex-post facto research design and both purposive and random sampling methods were used for the selection of the respondents. It was found from the study that the majority of the farm women used a mobile phone for agricultural information, followed by TV, posters, exhibitions, advertisement boards, and agricultural literature. All the selected mass media sources, that is, newspaper, TV, radio, literature, mobile phone, exhibition, advertisement board, film show, and posters had a positively and significantly influence on agricultural information network output in terms of knowledge of the farm women.