Rice stories' share of the public sphere
2016
Nidoy, M.G.M. | Manalo, J.A. IV
It is not a secret that agriculture stories oftentimes hardly get the lion share of the public sphere. The mainstream media have always prioritized politics, crime, and the economy. This is not favorable considering that there are many agriculture stories that can improve the lives of millions of poor people if only they are given the chance to be published. This paper aims to strategize on how agriculture news stories can be visible in the mainstream media by increasing their pick up rates for wider readership and to rally support for rice R and D advocacies. Specifically, it seeks to characterize agriculture stories that get published in the mainstream media; identify ways by which products of research studies can be noticed to affect national policies; and identify agriculture stories champions. Media surveillance was conducted by PhilRice for all stories on rice from August to December 2015 involving all national dailies, 70 community newspapers, and Metro Manila-based television stations. The authors did content analysis of all the data collected. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Results showed that of the 500 stories on rice collected from the media outlets covered, 40% comprised of press releases picked-up from the PhilRice website while 60% of stories were from journalists from different newspapers and online sites. It should be noted that 50% of the stories cited PhilRice studies, technologies, and experts in news articles by news writers, columnists, and policy-makers. The top themes written on rice were on disaster risk management, El Ni├▒o mitigation and adaptation, and new technologies such as newly released varieties. Careful and speedy reflection on the stories that come out in the mainstream media, for instance fixing the angling and being mindful of the keywords that are oftentimes used, is needed for agriculture stories to get an even bigger space in the public sphere.
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