The online portrayal of urban farmers: Professionals’ perspectives on their influence on constructing farming-career paths
研究通过访谈32位城市农业专业人士，发现社交媒体上城市农民的多面形象（如小规模、多样性、道德引导等）会影响农业职业的抱负、意图和取向，对想了解网络如何塑造可持续职业认知的人有参考价值。
This research extends existing studies on the role of alternative food movements in supporting new farmers. It focuses on the urban agriculture movement, particularly the online portrayal of urban farmers in social media, and its impact on constructing farming-career paths. Analyses explore the perspectives of professionals (N = 32) involved in urban farming initiatives (practitioners, policy professionals, and beginning urban farmers) in Pennsylvania and Illinois. The study uses qualitative thematic coding and aggregates the theoretical dimensions supported by contemporary career theories. Career aspiration, career intention, and career orientation are the career-construction paths that are the interests of the study. Findings suggest that portrayals of urban farmers are multi-faced: " smallness ," " diversity ," " guidance by moral values ," " innovativeness ," and " popularity " are the essential themes explaining farming-career aspirations. Farming-career exposure and career experiments via social media are values that drive planned or unplanned career intentions. The portrayal of urban farmers as moral achievers is perceived as a motivator in career orientation by activating relationally driven (inspirations gathered from online relationships) and protean (self-driven) attitudes. Overall, our study demonstrated that online portrayals of urban farmers can shape perceptions about careers within sustainable sectors, including agriculture-related professions. • Study explores the online portrayals of urban farmers and their effect on the perception of the farming profession. • Analysis is based on in-depth interviews with professionals in urban agriculture initiatives. • Smallness, diversity, moral values, innovativeness, and popularity characterize the portrayals. • The career intention effect explained with the online career exposure and career experiment. • Career orientation effect involved relationally driven and protean (self-driven) attitudes.