The virtual good farmer: Farmers’ use of social media and the (re)presentation of “good farming”

Abstract

This paper advances the literature on the ‘good farmer’ by considering the role social media may play in the presentation, refinement and reworking of notions of good farming. In exploring these ideas, the paper brings current understandings of the good farmer into conversation with those literatures on online capital exchange and the extensions of Goffman's ideas of identity performance. The paper draws on analysis of 5,000 farming tweets and interviews with 22 farmers who utilize Twitter. The paper considers how social media offers a change to the geographies and temporalities of good farming as it allows connection to a broader, geographically unrestricted, audience, might open up the previously un(der)observed or inaccessible microspaces of the farm, and allow the multifarious and often ephemeral aspects of farming practices to be captured. In moving, conceptually, beyond the idea of identity performance toward one of curation, the paper introduces the idea of didactic text, which serves to contextualize what is seen as good (and bad) farming practice. The paper shows how social media's ability to offer this regular and contextual information allows us to move beyond abstracted and decontextualized symbols of good farming toward recognizing the context-specific nature of the ‘rules of the game,’ and how a broader audience beyond the farming community may be beginning to play a role in (re)shaping the symbols and practices of good farming.