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The agricultural and natural resources industries are increasingly faced with remarks and skepticism from consumers and activists alike. Equipping those in industry as well as college graduates with skills to effectively share agriculture's story through a variety of mediums continues to increase in importance. This qualitative study sought to explore learning objectives and curriculum goals that agricultural advocates have for an undergraduate agricultural advocacy course. Phone interviews with individuals involved in agricultural advocacy revealed two-way communication skills were important when communicating with the public. Active listening, communicating with an open mind, communicating at a level of understanding, and equipping oneself with an arsenal of industry knowledge and contacts were found to be key learning outcomes for a course such as this. Further, role-playing activities, professional experiences, and online media communication abilities were also found to be important class assignments, activities, and skills that would allow students to perfect these two-way communication skills. From the findings of this study, undergraduate educators may have a better understanding of the importance of incorporating two-way communications into their curriculum as well as have a guideline for developing a course for agricultural advocacy within their agricultural education, communications, and leadership programs. The findings of this study may also help communications practitioners and Extension personnel as they prepare for agricultural advocacy efforts within their organizations.

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The discovery of the antibiotic Aureomycin as a growth promotor for the livestock industry was viewed as revolutionary in 1950. The use of antibiotics as growth promoters in livestock, however, has been questioned by health professionals concerned with the role this use might play in the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria. As a public health issue, newspapers have covered this topic since its discovery. Media, such as newspapers, have used frames to discuss the topic over time as new discoveries have occurred, policy changes have been implemented, and food animal production has changed. The purpose of this study was to determine the frames and sources used by national U.S. newspapers when discussing the topic of antibiotic use in livestock and antibiotic resistance. A quantitative content analysis was conducted on three national U.S. newspapers from 1996-2017 and found three primary frames were used when discussing antibiotic use in livestock and antibiotic resistance. The content analysis also indicated that over 90% of the news articles contained a scientific source when communicating about this scientific topic. Based on the frames identified some readers are being ill-informed about this topic and could be using this information in their decision making without having all of the facts. Science communicators should prioritize the inclusion of scientific sources in their writing as they communicate about complex, controversial topics.

On January 1, 2017, the final rule of the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) was put into place requiring antibiotics approved for both humans and animals to be discontinued for growth promotion. This change was brought on by the role growth promoters in livestock production play in the development of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance increases the costs associated with human health care by increasing the length of stays in the hospital and requiring more intensive medical care for patients. The purpose of this study was to explore sentiment and characteristics of social media content and the characteristics of the key influencers whose opinions had the greatest amount of reach on social media in regard to antibiotic use in livestock and antibiotic resistance. Nuvi, a social media monitoring program, provided sentiment for each tweet and coded 64.8% of the content (n = 129) as negative compared to 38.2% (n = 76) humans coded as negative. The contrast between human coders and Nuvi indicates there could be discrepancies between how Nuvi codes content and the way a human might interpret the content. No key influencer discussed antibiotic use in livestock positively. Findings suggest agricultural communicators should not rely completely on the output from sentiment analysis programs to evaluate how the public discusses issues related to agriculture, particularly controversial issues. Further, agricultural communications practitioners should prioritize monitoring the content shared by key influencers in an effort to better understand the content being shared by the most influential users. Recommendations for future research are provided.