A novel study investigating the media coverage of soil conservation practices is poised to change the way organizations assess their efforts to educate farmers. The study, which is the first to use computational methods to assess an entire body of online articles from agriculture, examined 68,401 news stories published between 2002 and 2020 across four agricultural print media outlets to better understand how soil conservation is portrayed in the media.
Led by Nelson Institute affiliates Kaiping Chen, an assistant professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communication and Bret Shaw, an associate professor in the Department of Life Sciences Communication and an environmental communication specialist for the Division of Extension at UW–Madison, the study identified the most frequently written-about soil conservation practices and noted that soil conservation was generally written about in a positive way.
The co-authors hope that their study, which was published in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, will help researchers, organizations, and outreach professionals to better understand how soil conservation information is being shared and how to improve messaging and education efforts.