# WikiJournal Preprints/Content types evaluation of agriculture YouTube videos in Nepali language

WikiJournal Preprints Open access • Publication charge free • Public peer review
WikiJournal of Science
WikiJournal of Humanities
WikiJournal of PPB
Editorial guidelines Ethics statement Bylaws Indexing Financials and reports 1-year/3-year plan Proposed platform Meeting minutes Calendar
WikiJournal User Group is a publishing group of open-access, free-to-publish, Wikipedia-integrated academic journals. <seo title=" Wikiversity Journal User Group, WikiJournal Free to publish, Open access, Open-access, Non-profit, online journal, Public peer review "/>
This article is an unpublished pre-print undergoing public peer review organised by the WikiJournal of Science.
First submitted: 21 Nov 2024 Create peer review location
QID: create wikidata item
License:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original author and source are credited.

## Article information

Author: Anonymous until acceptance

## Introduction

YouTube is an online video sharing platform launched in 2005. The platform enables the users to upload their video contents while the viewers can interact with the different options by liking the content, commenting and subscribing to the uploader’s channel. Along with its usual service, its other services (such as YouTube premium, YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, YouTube Movies, YouTube Shorts and others) have also been launched expanding the YouTube ecosystem indirectly helping the main site to gain more popularity. Estimated to have more than 2.5 billion monthly active users in 2023, YouTube has been undeniably influential to young people in their adolescents, and visited by all age groups around the world. Statistically, 90% of YouTube visitors access it from mobile devices and its large number of visitors were from the United States and South Korea around the end of 2022. The popularity of the platform is due to the chance for self-promotion and publicization, selling one’s products or services to the world wide audience.
The use of social media platforms like YouTube are generally higher in developed countries which are expanding rapidly in lesser developing countries. In Nepal, roughly 41% of the total population, as of February 2023, were estimated to be actively engaging in social media with almost 99% of the internet users of Nepal using mobile devices for social media access. According to the Economic Survey of Nepal, by mid-March of 2023, broadband internet service has reached all local level offices and 6,743 ward offices while internet customer density has reached 130.64 percent. Census of Nepal 2021 further showed 72.94 percent of households with smart mobile phones and internet facility with 37.72% of households of Nepal. This has expediently increased accessibility to the social media platform including YouTube among the Nepali internet users.
Current popularity of YouTube in Nepal can be traced from the year 2018 which has seen to be in rapid increase afterwards; the main reasons being in the early retrieval of the news and as the source of the entertainment and also due to the increased mobile internet users. The other point is also the installation of the YouTube local servers that makes the YouTube run faster in Nepal compared to other sites and the web page settings has been modified in Nepali language.
YouTube is a global phenomenon having higher social impacts but the noticeable trends are also in its regional importance with YouTube contents becoming unique according to the geographic regions. YouTube has been the major discourse among the researchers mainly in its ways of dissemination of information. YouTube in agriculture has been mainly used as the digital tool for the agricultural information dissemination, positively changing the traditional ways of agricultural extension. Effective or ineffective in its own ways, social media and online platforms have been seen in the past six or seven years as the potential tool for e-extension in Nepal. Additionally, ICT’s involvement in agriculture has been potentially realised for the progress of agri projects in the E‐Governance Master Plan (eGMP) in 2019 and also of the e-governance master plan of Madesh province of Nepal. Importance of YouTube within these frameworks as agricultural digital extension or as an e-extension tool should be realised in Nepal.
Understanding the increasing use of the online social media platform especially YouTube, the observation has been necessary in the agricultural contexts of Nepal. It has been necessary to document the use of YouTube regarding the creation of agriculture contents in Nepali language. The attempts are to observe videos based on their way of presenting the information by grouping them in different categories. By simultaneously noting video characteristics (likes, number of comments, video title, video upload dates), understanding of the agriculture video contents has been attempted further showcasing YouTube's high potential as an digital extension platform.
This article is likely to be helpful for anyone interested in YouTube related research showcasing YouTube as an e-extension tool. This study is certainly early of its kind in Nepali contexts and will likely benefit anyone with a general interest in Nepali agriculture.

## Methodology
### Video search

For searching the YouTube videos, the tuber package was used in the R programming environment. The tuber package developed by Sood et al. can be used with YouTube Data API which is a useful method to extract the YouTube data. YouTube Data API allows the user to access video information from the YouTube platform which can collectively be video titles, descriptions, ratings, upload dates. Multiple resources such as YouTube Data API v3 Tutorial within the YouTube platform can be followed to use YouTube Data API. Helpful and adaptable code snippets to be used using the tuber package are provided in the vignettes. These were used and few functions were written for the video search, filtering, sorting and so on.
A search strategy for the research has been presented as flowchart in Figure 1. Different terms relating the agriculture activities in Nepali unicode were used as the search terms to discover the videos from the year 2015 to 2022. The search terms have been listed in Table 1 with the English translations. Unicodes are the standards for the universal character for the writing scripts for the languages around the world which is useful for sharing textual information in the computing environment.
The search terms were used so as to result in the limited videos only made within those searched themes. Using the Nepali terms firmly results in Nepali language video materials The search terms used for different farming activities are listed in the table 1.
The videos were further filtered to have the search terms included in the title of the video. It was followed by retrieving the video statistics which would result in the number of views, likes and comments. The number of dislike counts have been removed since November 2021 to deter the dislike attacks in the uploads. The dislike counts are not retrieved by the tuber package as well. Only the videos receiving more than 100 likes were filtered further and sorted descending to get the videos with maximum likes.
Searched topics with video results less than 100 likes were not considered further. The consideration of 100 likes meant that the video was watched by 100 people, as views alone would not hint at the least number of users who have watched the video. Minimum one video to maximum ten videos from each “search term” were watched to analyse the type of the video contents.
Any videos, although received 100 likes and had the search terms in its title, but if the video contents had no agricultural significance, were not counted within the maximum 10 videos limit. Similarly, any videos not in Nepali language but rather in any similar language that uses the same scripts were also excluded. This can be the case when the Nepali terms are similar to other regional languages like Hindi which can show complete similarities in the search terms.
Table 1: Search terms used in the video search :
| Topic: "search term" | English translation of the search term |
| rice: 'धानको खेती' | Rice farming |
| maize: ‘मकै खेती’ | Maize farming |
| wheat: 'गहुँ खेती' | Wheat farming |
| vegetables: 'तरकारी खेती' | Vegetable farming |
| potato: ‘आलु खेती' | Potato farming |
| tomato: 'गोलभेंडा खेती' | Tomato farming |
| mushroom: 'च्याउ खेती' | Mushroom farming |
| fruits: 'फलफुल खेती’, ‘फलफूल खेती' (both the terms, फुल which means egg, and फूल which means flowers, were used as they are homophones in Nepali, and are written interchangeably unknowingly) | Fruits farming |
| cow: गाई पालन' | Cow rearing |
| goats: 'बाख्रा पालन' | Goat rearing |
| buffalo: 'भैँसी पालन' | Buffalo rearing |
| pig: 'बङ्गुर पालन' | Pig rearing |
| poultry: 'कुखुरा पालन' | Chicken rearing |
| fish: 'माछा पालन' | Fish rearing |
| bees: 'मौरी पालन' | Beekeeping |

### Categorization of the videos

The video contents were grouped based on the following types:
* Interview type: Any videos that included the interview with the single individual in the major duration of the videos were grouped into this type. The individuals can be both the farmer or specialist discussing the particular searched theme.
* Discussion type: Any videos that included the group discussion with the group of panels were included in this type. The discussion revolving around any theme related with the searched terms are grouped into this type. This would include three or more than three speakers discussing the topic where audience generally asks the questions for the discussing panels.
* Demonstration type: Any videos with the objective of sharing any agriculture technology were grouped into this type. Video contents where the speaker narrated or talked about the methods were also included in this type.
* News, Report or Documentary: Videos that mainly shared the news or detailed events of any agriculture incidents were grouped in this type. This included the format where the presenter presents the news. The documentary or reports should have included the differently attached clips as to present as the video material. Unlike demonstration type, the subject matter should be large enough to cover multiple issues of the “search term” not being central to minimal criteria.
* Conference and webinars: Any videos that shared the conducted research or shared the narration with the presentation were grouped in this type. If found, this type included any recorded zoom meetings. For the offline meetings, the video should distinctly show the mass gatherings of the people where a number of speakers is presenting his research work. This would be different from the interview type where there would be the presence of involvement of one or two person in the whole video. However, in conferences and webinars multiple speakers would present their topics with the presence of an audience.
* Miscellaneous: Any videos that cannot be grouped into the above categories were grouped in this type. This type of videos included any movies if found, animated videos or songs or any other video materials based on the search themes, but should be demonstrating the relevance of the searched terms.
Due to the volume of the video, the video was quickly glimpsed to get the main gist and the topic discussion. It meant to quickly skim the video by clicking in different times of the video. The grouped video contents were further followed by collecting its time duration, year of publication, ratings as likes and video ids. Video ids are unique 11 digits consisting of alphabets and numbers within the video URL, such as in the given pseudo link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=###########, the hashtags represent the video ids. Any specific subject case of the videos were noted.

## Results
### Types of video contents

Based on the above methods, 121 videos were assessed for the content types evaluation of the Nepali language agriculture videos. The content type grouping mentioned according to the methods were still difficult in many cases as some videos could be grouped into many groups, but the groupings were mostly done according to the overall content of the video and were simply not according as thought in the methods. As shown in table 2, the most videos (58 videos) were of the interview type mostly done with the farmers and the second video higher number of videos were of the demonstration type (36 videos). But, it is still worth mentioning that the interview done with the farmer still had some portions of the video demonstrating their methods of farming.
Table 2: Number of YouTube videos according to the types :
| Video types | Number of videos |
| Demonstration | 36 |
| Narration | 9 |
| Interview, farmer | 58 |
| Interview, specialist | 5 |
| News | 2 |
| Others | 2 |
| No relevance | 9 |
| Total videos | 121 |
Narration types included 9 videos where the speakers in the video were mostly narrating the topic rather than showcasing the actual technology in the major duration of the video. Similarly, in the interview settings, 5 videos dealt with the interview with the specialist or agricultural technicians. 2 videos were about the agriculture news and the 2 videos were grouped into other types which had minor agricultural importance but did not really revolve directly around the main search terms (‘others’ does not mean the miscellaneous type described in the methods). 9 videos were completely out of agricultural importance although the search terms were in the title of the video. All 121 videos had more than 100 likes.
Search terms related to wheat and fruit did not generate the video with 100 likes although videos were resulted during the search. All other search terms resulted in 10 videos including non-relevant videos while rice videos were 6, tomato videos were 4 and buffalo related videos were only 2. This can be attributed to the use of Nepali words with subtle differences in the use of diacritic sign such as भैँसी or भैसी where the former has been used. While the rice related search might have been mixed with the Hindi related terms in the initial searches which decreased the quantity of Nepali language video in the process which might also have been for the wheat and fruit related searches.
Videos such as conferences or webinars and discussion types were not seen among 121 videos. This could be due to the use of different terms in their title (if English terms were used in their video titles), or it could also be interpreted towards its number of views or likes it receives. The thresholds of 100 likes could also have negatively excluded them in the final maximum 10 videos, but the author firmly believes such videos, mainly recorded conferences type videos are rather unfound. The other reasons might be due to such videos comparatively being lesser in number, or in the Nepali contexts, this can be further guessed towards the yearly organised agricultural conferences and perhaps the lack of recording practice of such occasions and sharing in the YouTube platform.
Innovative methods of agriculture videos such as video animations, drama, songs and short movies were not found among the observed videos. The tutorials for any farming related software or mobile applications were also not found in the search.

### Video properties

The upload years of the video were only after 2019. The higher number of videos were in 2020 with 41 videos found to be uploaded that year (Table 3). The year 2015 and 2016, irrespective of being included in the search years, had no video from that year in the list of videos. The increment in the video uploads in 2020 can be further interpreted due to the COVID-19 allowing Nepali YouTube users to upload the videos, although this cannot be the exact interpretation.
Table 3: Number of YouTube videos by the year of uploads :
| Year of the video uploads | Number of videos |
| 2015 | 0 |
| 2016 | 0 |
| 2017 | 1 |
| 2018 | 4 |
| 2019 | 22 |
| 2020 | 41 |
| 2021 | 27 |
| 2022 | 17 |
| Videos not included | 9 |
| Total videos | 121 |
The mean duration of the video from the 121 videos was found to be 17.9 minutes and the median video length was 16.1 minutes. The longest video was about 59.5 minutes and the shortest was 1.1 minutes (Table 4a). The length of videos with 5 to 20 minutes were higher in number (56 videos) followed by videos ranging 20 to 45 minutes (44 videos) (Table 4b). Videos greater than 45 minutes were seen as well which were about 3 in number and videos less than 5 minutes were about 9 in number. The general assumption in YouTube is that the length of the video also plays an important role in collecting the number of views and likes because longer videos are unlikely to be watched fully. As the number of views and likes are likely to change, statistical calculations have not been listed in Table 3. YouTube’s own mechanisms sometimes also alter the recommendation system playing roles in attracting the users as pointed out by Figueiredo et al. which over time can have different numbers of likes and views.
Table 4: Statistics of YouTube video duration and number of videos by their duration a. Statistics of YouTube video length :
| Duration statistics | Length of the videos (mins) |
| Mean length | 17.9 |
| Median length | 16.1 |
| Maximum length | 59.5 |
| Minimum length | 1.1 |
b. Number of videos by length :
| Length of the videos | Number of the videos |
| Less than 5 minutes | 9 |
| 5 to 20 minutes | 56 |
| 20 to 45 minutes | 44 |
| Greater than 45 minutes | 3 |
| Videos not included | 9 |
| Total videos | 121 |

## Discussion
### Video cases

The advantage of all the relevant observed YouTube videos was the unique presentation of each individual, their perspectives, experiences, knowledge and attitudes towards farming occupation. Video contents related to interview type clearly presents how agriculture has impacted them or what impacted them to follow it. Videos in most cases were motivating such as video id: 73GAW_f2vgk where the goat farmer is actively encouraging others with his knowledge of goat rearing, and similarly, such as video id: 1d7TgG8KI4M about buffalo farming, shares the challenges of the farmer closely which hints how the YouTube can be a useful platform to express for the farmers.
Farmer interview videos (video id: JvJJ7-rTuIk, YJVlp1UP93E, SnqxepijSTw) also share the struggles of returnee migrants and their success which can potentially motivate the similar minded Nepali people.
Videos, such as video id: 4-0eo-zwA-c, also presents the personal stories of how a lady after the demise of her husband could support herself from bee farming. In other videos such as video id: sjFzVIC3Phg presents the family unity of how a mother is supporting her sons in goat farming. In all ways, the YouTube videos can also be seen as a way of expressing human sentiments in close relation to agriculture. The advantages, all together, are the agriculture extension in digital format, such as video id: uhee0wFciKw, where the presenter clarifies more on maize farming technology applicable in local contexts.

### Accurateness, viewership and future research

The accuracy of all the YouTube videos, if it presents the scientific information, may be a subjective issue. But this discussion is not the point of the research. However, the information presented in all the videos are likely to have scientific information as some viewers with more reliable knowledge are likely to criticise at some point in the comments. As the videos most often present farmer experiences, these are likely to be more relatable and applicable. The technicalities of any scientific topic, such as shared by Chakma et al. in the videos of hydroponic technologies, might still be lacking the high quality in them, even if certain standards are sought in the videos. However, searching for collective scientific accuracy may not always be the objective, as viewers might have diverse viewing interests. If the videos are short, implementable, farmer friendly while everything fully visualised, this is sure to be helpful surpassing scientificity. This certainly applies for Nepali agriculture videos as well.
The other issue can be in determining usefulness of YouTube videos. Getting likes or maximum number of views cannot be always related to how useful it was to the viewers. The additional point is also on the fact that not all the YouTube viewers are likely to be farmers, and even if it was watched by the farmers, this still remains the researchable area on how beneficial it is, was or would be for the farmer. What the researcher would rate the videos as helpful may or may not have been comprehensible from farmers' perspectives depending on farmers’ level of knowledge. An example of video (id: OKmTGKC8aSg) can be provided where the farmer shares his inspiration in soil-less farming from YouTube who himself is returnee migrant, but it still remains unclear on a larger level how satisfied he was, and at what stages of his farming it was assistive in spite of the fact that he might have gained theoretical knowledge. A certain example of Chakma, Ruba, and Riya can be highlighted where the Bengali viewers were still not found to be fully appeased even by the high contents, but unsatisfactory viewers would suggest the content creators in producing more quality and engaging videos. As pointed out by Welbourne & Grant, contents from general users are also likely to be more popular even if compared to professionally produced materials. This variably suggests the usefulness to be dependent on video contents and the user needs.
Other areas of the research could also be towards the analysis of the comments of the videos. This could hint how the video was perceived by the viewers or viewers likely to be farmers. But, in general observation, the comments written in Nepali scripts, English, and in mixed ways of using English and Nepali can still be a challenge in further research.
The search terms, similarly, can still be limitations in the YouTube searches. Many Nepali terms can be similarly written in other languages as well which can mix the resulting YouTube videos in other languages. Explorations with other crops, themes and different search terminologies are equally possible.

## Conclusion

From this study, the presence of agricultural YouTube videos in Nepali language are clearly visible in disseminating agriculture related information. These videos are suitable for agricultural reference to some extent, and can be motivational and inspirational to other people interested in farming activities. The observed videos also share personal sentiments, perspectives and experiences. Based on how and what the content presentation has been done, the video types could be grouped in different types. If presented with more scientific and applicable ways of knowledge, the YouTube platform can surely be best exploited as the digital extension platform.
Future research can still be directed towards understanding how the YouTube videos are helpful or to what extent they are helpful and directions can be towards the experimentation on what types of videos are likely to be more helpful. Overall, in the current contexts of Nepal, these YouTube agriculture videos may positively motivate farming related activities for livelihood within the country.

## Additional information
### Acknowledgements

The author expresses his gratitude to the journal for the opportunity to publish this academic article. The author also thanks to the journal editor and the reviewers for valuable comments and feedback to improve the quality of the article.

### Competing interests

The author has no competing interest.

### Funding

None