“Here we give advice for free”: the functioning of plant clinics in Rwanda

Although plant clinics are considered an important mechanism in the service delivery to farmers, not much is known about their functioning in the daily reality of plant doctors and farmer-clients. This article reports on an exploratory study describing the functioning of eight plant clinics in Rwanda. Personal and organisational commitment, publicity, and proactive communication with farmers and local leaders are key factors explaining higher attendance of some clinics. Farmer attendance is under-reported by 40–50%. Data management needs improvement to make clinic records reliable tools for decision-makers. This type of assessment can help improve operations and realise the plant clinics’ potential.     

Credibility,source identification and message acceptance: The case of political persuasion

Abstract

This paper addresses questions related to effects of source credibility on message acceptance. More specifically, we look at (a) the effects of attributed credibility of the source on message acceptance in situation of source identification versus non‐identification, and (b) the effects of attributed credibility of two competitive sources on the acceptance of their respective messages in positively versus negatively predisposed audiences.

Source identification and source competition relate to the more general problem of persuasion and inoculation. Political parties often strive to persuade partisan, hostile, or politically neutral audiences while simultaneously trying to inoculate them against the message of opposing parties. These processes of persuasion can take place in situations where the source is either identified (e.g., a well‐known politician clearly linked with a political party) or not identified (e.g., a journalist who presents a politician's point of view without naming him/her). In cases where the source has been identified, the audience may remember the message itself and yet forget who had advanced the message. This raises the question of the extent to which communicators should concern themselves with the attributed credibility of the source in situations of either source identification or non‐identification? And how important is credibility in reinforcing the support of partisans or in persuading neutral and hostile audiences? These are some of the issues we examine experimentally in this article.