Information Need, Perceived Credibility of Information Sources Among Rural Women

Information is an important resource for individual growth and survival. Information is very critical component in taking decision by rural women, so a study was conducted to assess the information need, information sources and their perceived credibility among rural women. The study was undertaken in two districts of Uttar Pradesh namely Hapur and Ghaziabad with 120 respondents. Both the district was selected purposively as a part of study of a project conducted by Connecting Dream Foundation. From each district two villages were selected purposively and from each villages 30 respondents were selected randomly. Study reported that 75.00 percent of rural women have high information need related to health & credit issues followed by government schemes/services (72.50%) followed by education (58.33%) followed by Agriculture (41.75%). Only 12.50 per cent rural women expressed high information need regarding gender related issues & 65 per cent rural women reported to have medium information need on same aspects. It was found that most of the rural women (80%) regularly use family as source of information, followed by friends/neighbors (62.20). Family members were perceived most credible source of information by rural women (80%), followed by friend/neighbors (73.33). So it is observed that there is huge information gap exist regarding specific information need of rural women and therefore need to be addressed in order to informational empowerment of rural women in particular and overall empowerment in general. Through using various information sources based on credibility accorded to these sources by rural women, specific information need can be addressed more appropriately.