2021 Volume 2021 Issue 132 Pages 10-18
The participants of agricultural diversification need to obtain various kinds of information since they need to acquire a wide variety of knowledge for successful agricultural diversification. Before the ICT innovation, they used to obtain such information through the network based on their kin-ties and local community. However, in this era of ICT technologies, they now develop and maintain their networks through social networking services (SNS). They exchange necessary information in agricultural diversification using this new type of network. This paper presents our investigation of networks on SNS. Specifically, we conducted a study to reveal (1) which SNS the participants use to develop and maintain their networks and (2) what type of support the participants obtain from their networks. Our results show that the participants (1) use different SNS for different purposes and (2) obtain informational, esteem, and emotional supports from their network on SNS.
