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Overview: Diffusion
In an outdoors screening environment, villagers decide whether to remain in the audience with their feet. Extension staff monitors the dynamics of an audience, sometimes by directly posing questions, to maintain a farmer’s engagement. Extension workers use the programming as a tool to disseminate content to a larger audience while maintaining personalized support. That is, extension workers will typically reiterate concepts between each clipping, pose questions to gauge interest, and announce follow-up visits and subsequent screenings. Extension workers encourage farmers to attempt processes on their own, and announce their availability to individually visit farmer plots as required. Extension workers sometimes provide farmers with the required ingredients or tools during the screenings of certain processes. Farmers may choose to avoid a practice if they need to purchase its ingredients from a distant store. During one screening, 16 farmers were introduced to a simple method of cultivating azola. Twelve of the farmers expressed interest and were provided plastic sheets and culture to attempt the method on their own. The remaining 4 claimed the technique was either not applicable or not understandable to them. Of the 12 interested farmers, 6 farmers required the full-time supervision of extension staff, 3 farmers began the process on their own but requested follow-up support to validate their work, and 3 farmers successfully completed the process without any field support. Interestingly, the farmers requested the same content to be shown 5 times during a single screening to build sufficient confidence to embark on attempting the procedure. The opportunity to repeat an expert demonstration multiple times in such a manner would be infeasible without video. DG content can motivate farmers to adopt relevant new techniques with clarity and completeness, particularly when they observe their peers benefiting from them. Still, the availability of extension staff is crucial to ensure that the farmers are able to participate in the content generation process, are engaged during TV screenings, and are provided follow-up support in the field.
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A farmer is provided a plastic sheet to adopt a technique shown during a TV screening
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When recorded farmers attend content screenings, extension staff may encourage these farmers to share their personal experiences to motivate their peers. Some farmers may be hesitant to be perceived as “leaders” in certain audiences, but they often provide the best convincing ability for those with whom they have personal relationship. Remarkably, a few farmers have even experimented with some practices and discovered improvements that better suite local conditions. Promoting participation in both recordings and screenings builds momentum in a community to be involved in the process of learning, adopting, and innovating better agricultural practices.
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A tale of two farmers. (1) A farmer is recorded demonstrating how to make a raised bed nursery. This farmer sees himself on TV (2) at a DG screening in his village and encourages a second farmer (3) to do the same to be recorded.
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The described techniques that motivate farmers through the presence of field staff and peers reinforce the diffusion of better agricultural practices. Borrowing from the work of Everett M. Rogers, “diffusion reinforcement” refers to the need of ensuring that the content being produced is locally relevant by tapping into the social fabric of the community. Content is localized in terms of contributors, agriculture, and societal dynamics. Barraged by the unsolicited advice of extension workers in the past, farmers have developed an instinctive capacity to perceive disconnects between their world and that of “experts”. A plastic drum, for instance, used in a demonstration may turn away some farmers because they possess only earthen urns. Farmers are able to validate the trustworthiness and relevance of a practice by authenticating a known source or physically visiting the recorded field. During DG screenings, audience members are often interested in the name and village of recorded farmers. In addition, farmers on the verge of expressing interest in attempting a particular technique will typically ask for the names of other farmers in their village who have already tried the same. Local participants in video recordings can stimulate greater acceptance and encourage local competition within a community. For example, farmers may volunteer to be included in the content, so that they are seen by their peers as adopters of new practices. Peer content often initiates curiosity and establishes itself as a medium for transference through community participation. The quality of content recorded as members of a community attempt a particular practice may diminish as experts become unavailable in the field; however, expert content juxtaposed with farmer content provides both training and motivation for others to try the same.
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