Judul: Utilization of the media internet as information source for ornamental plant farmers in Bogor
Abstrak: Ornamental plant is one of the agricultural products to be developed. For such necessities, the ornamental plant farmers need informations from the right sources. One of the sources frequently used is the internet media. Now adays, the people of Indonesia have been familiarized to use such a useful media for many field of development, including the agriculture. At present, the information on the growth and development of agriculture is still very scarce. Whereas, farmers need the right information of agricultural development to support their functions. The question is at what extent do the ornamental plant farmers have utilized internet as the source of information on cultivation techniques, marketing, or the selection of ornamental plants. Internet media is defined as a vast network which is licensed not only to be able to connect each other to disseminate and share digital files, but also to shorten the distance between countries. This research analyzes: the characteristics of ornamental plant farmers, their motivation in using internet media, their perception about internet media, and the internet media usage as a source of information; the relationship between the characteristics of ornamental farmers and internet media utilization as a source of information; the relationship between farmers’ perceptions and internet usage as the sources of information; and the relationship between perceptions of farmers with the use of the internet as an ornamental plant resources. The study was conducted in the Bogor branch of Indonesian Floriculture Association. The populations in this study are all the 35 ornamental plant growers who use the internet as a source of information. Data were collected through questionnaires, observation, in-depth interviews and documentation from June to December 2012. The Data collected in this study consists of primary data and secondary data. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and inferential statistical analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the data in general by using frequency, percentage, score and total score. Inferential statistical analysis is used to examine the relationship between variables X and Y with the Spearman Rank test and Chi Square. The results show that the age of ornamental plant farmers was dominated by 35- 51 years of age and most were female. Most farmers have low level of formal education, and most farmers had attended non-formal education. On the characteristics of learning resources, the majority of farmers conduct friends as a source of learning, Most of the farm-scale farmers is low (<600rb/month) and most have land only <300 square feet (narrow). Most farmers have high accessibilities of media. Regarding motives, farmers generally have a higher motive in using the internet as a source of information. Most of the farmers use internet media to add information, to broaden horizons, to overcome the problem, to expand social networks and to satisfy curiosity. Most farmers have a pretty good perception about the internet media and internet media utilization gains. On the use of the internet as a source of information, most of the farmers use the internet as a source of information on cultivation techniques, crop marketing and selection of plant species. The characteristic of farming experience has
Keyword: internet media, ornamental plant, information source