Web based Information Dissemionation

Case of Rabbit Farming in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

A World Bank analysis of gender and investment in the agricultural sector had concluded that in countries where half or more of all farming is done by women, the neglect of the needs of female farmers in rural development programmes had reduced total agricultural outputs by as much as 20 per cent (Blackden and Bhanu, 1999). However, globally, we see that women's access to new research and to improved technological inputs has been very limited. Utilization of mass media for agriculture-related information too has been limited, with several barriers hampering their access and usage. Traditional media have all along been used by public extension systems to reach the rural women, but these have mostly been monologic and have not allowed for much interaction with users. The new media such as Internet on the other hand, is widely believed to offer great potential as an interactive mass medium for influencing the cognitive behaviour of rural women. World Wide Web and other Internet-based resources have many of the characteristics necessary for persuasive communication and constitute a hybrid channel that combines the positive attributes of interpersonal and mass communication (Cassell et al, 1998)