Search

In the face of increasing consumer scrutiny of the food supply chain, communication practitioners have been determined to understand public perceptions of the food production process from 'farm to fork.' The beef industry has been of particular interest due to the relatively high production emissions and an increased level of public support for environmentally friendly food behaviors, such as eating less beef. To address these concerns, the USDA and industry organizations are creating programs to incentivize and promote climate-smart beef production practices. Further, a new market is being created, where products may be labeled as 'sustainable' or 'climate-smart.' In order for this market to thrive, communicators and educators must strive to educate the public about these production practices; however, little is known about how to educate the public and market these climate-smart production techniques to the public. This study sought to identify and describe unique target audiences for educational communication about climate-smart beef production using audience segmentation. Through a K-means cluster analysis, we identified four strategic target audiences based on respondents' climate change concern, political ideology, trust in science, and perception of the environmental responsibility of the beef industry. After, we described each cluster's demographic characteristics, beef consumption frequency, attitude toward sustainable food products, and preferred communication sources to inform strategic communication efforts. This study provides insight and recommendations for educators and other practitioners communicating about climate-smart beef as well as areas of future research into this emergent area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of agricultural sustainability, specifically sustainable beef production, is not well established, and much misinformation frames this conversation. One way agricultural communicators can educate the public on this controversial topic is through infographics. Scholars have suggested recall, or the mental process of retrieving information from the past, as a technique to understand what someone has comprehended when exposed to new information. The Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP) provides insight into human information processing and recall, and it guided this study's development. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect various types of data visualizations used in infographics about agricultural topics have on college students' knowledge and ability to recall attributes from the data visualizations. An experimental study was conducted where participants viewed one of three infographics with embedded data visualizations and answered questions to understand their recall of information, design elements, and information recognition. The results show pictographs were significantly more effective in participant information recognition and the free and cued recall of design; however, it was not significant for free and cued recall of information. These findings add to the agricultural communication literature as they show how the type of data visualization can impact how viewers encode, store, and retrieve information. The researchers suggest agricultural communicators implement pictographs more frequently in infographic communications strategy. Additionally, agricultural communicators must begin to train students on the use of data visualization techniques in classroom settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri swept across the central and eastern United States bringing extreme cold, widespread power outages, and rolling blackouts throughout Texas. This storm prompted climate change to emerge as a major topic of controversy and conversation with scientists and the public alike, and many began to think about the impacts of climate change. Risk communication experts have suggested prior disaster experience is a key mechanism of understanding how risk perceptions are shaped, and ultimately, on how individuals arrive at a judgment, evaluation, or attitude toward information and situations. Drawing from risk communication scholars, we examined the role of prior disaster experience, risk perceptions of climate change, and individual characteristics on its relationship with support for climate change mitigation policy. To do so, we sourced a Qualtrics public opinion panel of residents who lived in Texas during Winter Storm Uri (n = 486) to answer a series of questions related to prior disaster experience, their climate change risk perceptions, and their support of climate change mitigation policy. We conducted two hierarchical regression models to examine how prior disaster experience and climate change risk perceptions predicted support for policy. We found the inclusion of prior disaster experience provided a significant change in the respondents support for climate change mitigation policy. Although academic conversations in agricultural communications have started to explore the varying opinions of climate change, there is much more research needed in this area to fully explore the dynamic and complex phenomena of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]