Perceived Impacts and Challenges of Agricultural Information on Short-Form Video Platforms as Rural Infrastructure

Short-form video platforms (SVSPs) have rapidly evolved from entertainment applications to essential digital infrastructures in rural areas. As such, they are reshaping how farmers organize production and manage everyday activities. However, little is known about how this transformation impacts agricultural practices directly. To explore this, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 farmers engaged in crop, livestock, and aquaculture production. Our findings reveal that farmers perceive SVSPs as infrastructural supports across various farming stages—planning, establishment, protection, and sales—by providing timely access to market opportunities, practical knowledge, and peer networks. However, reliance on SVSPs also introduces challenges, including fragmented and unreliable content, issues of contextual relevance, and tensions between platform dynamics and farming practices. This study contributes to understanding how emerging media infrastructures, like SVSPs, reshape rural production. We also offer design recommendations for building more context-aware, resilient, and inclusive digital support systems for agriculture.