Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Award Date

1964

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

Printing and Journalism

Abstract

The 4-H program receives considerable attention in event attendance as well as in publicity all through the state 4-H contests held during the South Dakota State Fair. Publicity in the form of news releases (and more recently news photographs with captions) has been provided to the local news media outlets by the state Extension Editorial Department. Publicity methods have changed during the course of more than fifteen state 4-H contests covered by this department from the daily roundup story for each of the daily newspapers in the late 1940’s to the news photographs and captions in the 1950’s and 1960’2 for the dailies and for television. Not until 1958 was the publicity program changed to include the weekly newspapers on the mailing list to receive news photographs and captions of their local state 4-H contest winners. Although engraving services were available for the weeklies, the editor’s interests in the state 4-H pictures ran from “very interested” to “no interest at all.” Those who were interested were quick to emphasize that they would use only “local” pictures in their publications. After it was established that local pictures could be engraved in time for the next issues of the weeklies, the editorial staff agreed to the increased effort of providing news photographs to the weeklies in addition to the dailies and to television. More than one hundred different scenes were ordinarily photographed during a state 4-H contest. In trying to find ways to increase the effectiveness of the state 4-H contest publicity program, the editorial staff, in 1960, decided to place a limit on the number of pictures that a weekly would receive. Baus agrees with this assumption. “There is one formula for success in getting material published in the small town press. While this is difficult because of the number of such newspapers, it is the only way to do an effective job. In an effort of find more effective methods of supplying state 4-H contest publicity to the weeklies, two hypotheses are offered in the paper.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

4-H clubs -- Public relations
Publicity
Agricultural extension work -- South Dakota

Description

Includes bibliographical references

Format

application/pdf

Number of Pages

64

Publisher

South Dakota State University

Download

Share

COinS