Content Analysis of Farmers’ KVK WhatsApp Group of Villupuram District in Tamil Nadu

The penetration and use of smart mobile phones with internet connectivity paved way to the increased use of social media tools and among them, WhatsApp is widely used by farmers for personal and group use. The efforts made by public institutions, development departments in reaching farmers and general public through WhatsApp has led to a creation of number of farmers WhatsApp groups for sharing of agricultural knowledge and information. The present study was carried out to analyse the content shared through KVK WhatsApp group. Viluppuram KVK WhatsApp group was purposively selected and the content shared was analyzed by non-participant observation method for 30 days. Data analyzed using frequency and percentage analysis. It was found that majority (83.97%) of the content shared by the farmers were related to agricultural activities. Farmers preferred to use text communication (37.18%) over other mode of messages. Farmers were actively engaged during morning hours in WhatsApp group due to their free time rather than later hours. Farmers opined that WhatsApp positively impacted them in obtaining timely information as well as personalized information.