Informational behavior in rural areas of developing countries: a literature review

Abstract

The rural environment, being distant from urban centers, is at a disadvantage in terms of access to information and consequent developments that could be applied in the agricultural production. The scarcity of information or the difficulty of access to it by individuals who are in rural areas is considered a gap to be studied in order to identify possible improvements that could be implemented. Considering this scenario, the main objective of this work is to do a literature review on informational behavior of individuals living in rural areas of developing countries. It was found that most studies in this subject aims to understand the informational needs and the sources of information that the rural population uses and that influence in their activities and routine tasks, the difficulties in accessing information and the intentions of the government and of the social system to assist and promote the development of this population. The analysis of these studies made it possible to identify that the informational needs of this population are mainly related to their agricultural/animal breeding activities and health-related issues. It was also found that interpersonal sources and more traditional sources of information, such as radio, continue to be widely used by this population, although many individuals living in rural areas have access to cell phones and to the Internet.