Motivations of Fish Farmers in El-Sharqia Governorate to Use Social Media Applications in Aquaculture

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Faculty of Agriculture Ain Shams University

10.21608/asejaiqjsae.2024.389679

Abstract

The current research aims to identify the degree of use and trust of fish farmers in social media applications within the field of aquaculture, to identify the motivations of fish farmers for using social media applications in aquaculture, to identify the extent of fish farmers' use of social media applications in fish farming and to identify the advantages and disadvantages of using social media applications in aquaculture. To achieve the research objectives, a random sample of fish farmers who use social media applications in the field of aquaculture in El-Sharqia Governorate was selected. The sample consisted of 75 fish farmers, representing approximately )75%( of the total 100 farmers participating in one of the fish production groups An electronic questionnaire was designed and collected through a group of fish farmers on the WhatsApp application during April and May 2024. Frequencies, percentages, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, range, and mode were used to analyze the research data. Results indicate that:
1- Approximately )93.3%( of the respondents prefer social media platforms, and about (82.7%) prefer WhatsApp as a means of communication.
2- The most widely used social media application among fish farmers is WhatsApp, used by about )98.7%( of respondents, followed by YouTube (64%) and Facebook (61.3%).
3- The communicative and advisory motivations are the primary reasons for using social media applications in the field of aquaculture. Farmers' communicative and advisory motivations are in the high category, approximately )100%(, indicating that farmers have a high responsiveness to advisory information in the field of aquaculture.

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