Purpose and Media Utilization Pattern among ATMA Farmers of Bihar

The experts around the world have agreed on the fact the success or failure of any enterprise like farming is not anymore solely dependent on the field conditions, but on the availability of the right information at the right time. But there is often a huge gap in the relevance of the available information and its utilization as far as rural India is concerned. The current study is intended on studying the purpose of the mass media usage by the farmers and also the utilization pattern of mass media by the farmers in four districts of Bihar. The study was conducted on the ATMA farmers of Bihar. The knowledge on dynamics of media use in the rural areas will help the broadcasters and the extension functionaries in planning the programs for disseminating information in a more effective manner. The methodology used in the current study is descriptive research design. The study concluded that the farmers are utilizing the mass media sources mainly for obtaining news or information. Also for majority of the farmers the mass media sources are available and those who are not having them are using the sources owned by others. The farmers are spending more than one hour on the use of T.V and newspaper daily. Afternoon was reported to be the most utilized time segment of the day for media like TV and Radio where as morning for newspaper reading and free time for magazine reading.