Original scientific paper
The Degree of Satisfying the Needs and of the Exposure to Mass Media of the Employed in Croatian Forest
Josip Biškup
; Facully of Forestry, Zagreb
Abstract
Professors of social sciences at the Faculty of Forestry, University of Zagreb, have been conducting, in cooperation with a number of associates from without, longitudinal sociological research in the field of forestry in Croatia. The research work has begun in 1980 within the project of the Institute for Forestry Research under the title "The Research of Organizational, Economical and Sociological Factors of Production in Forestry". It includes the sociological project "Research of the Human Factor in the Field of Forestry". In the past ten years many projects have been carried out and about thirty reviewed scientific works published interpreting the results of sociological research.
In this article the results obtained through a questionnaire which was distributed in 87 localities in Croatia are analysed. In order to examine the degree in which those employed in forestry manage to satisfy their needs for exposure to mass media, a representative stratified sample consisting of 864 examinees was used:
It had been presupposed, in the research hypothesis, that a statistically relevant distinction between the rank of satisfying the need for exposure to mass media and the level of education in the population does not exist. Based on a subjective estimation by the examinees and the ranking from 1 to 5 of the degree of satisfying the needs concerned, and after cross correlating the variables of the education level and those of the answers, the null hypothesis had to be rejected. Namely, the existence of differences in the degree of satisfying the need for exposure to mass media had been confirmed.
Although the more educated examinees have also higher aspirations, they manage to satisfy them in a greater extent, usually choosing ranks 4 and 5.
Significant differences in satisfying the above mentioned needs, regarding newspapers on the one hand and 'IV on ihe other, have also emerged. Examinees of a lower level of education are the least satisfied with the fulfillment of their need to read, newspapers, a majority of them having chosen the values 1 and 2. This can be interpreted by the fact that forest workers in Yugoslavia work during the felling season all day long and therefore have no time to read, even if they manage to obtain newspapers. A great many workers live in workers' dwellings and go home not more than once a week, thus having little opportunity to read newspapers.
Furthermore, according to the results of earlier research, most of the forest workers (60%) are also farmers engaged in their free time in agricultural and various domestic activities.
The examinees spend roughly an equal amount of time listening to the radio, the difference in exposure between the lower educated and the higher educated examinees being a small one. This is due to the fact that the radio can be listened to almost anywhere.
TV is watched much more by the workers since this medium is very attractive to them. Having TV sets in the workers' dwellings presents an additional stimulus. What they need is more free time and less fatigue in order to become equal in satisfying their needs with the higher educated examinees. The average values of satisfying the needs of forest workers are nevertheless somewhat higher than those of the farmers.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
155383
URI
Publication date:
31.3.1990.
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