Jordi Farré. Director of Department of Communication Studies URV

1. COMMUNICATING FOOD FOR HEALTH
BENEFITS
 NEW FOOD TRENDS AND MEANINGS 
 PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES AND FOOD COMMUNICATION 
 INNOVATIVE PRACTICES IN COMMUNICATION 
8th – 9th November, 2012
TARRAGONA
COMMUNICATING FOOD: FOODWAYS AS A MAP OF MEANINGS
• FOOD AS COMMUNICATION
• COMMUNICATION AS A SOCIAL RIGHT
• COMUNICATION AS A DIALOGUE PRACTICE

2. URV-Repsol Chair for
Excellence in Communication
“We have a communication problem”, also in sharing benefits or
solutions to be reached: “We have a communication solution”
• Communication has become the dimension on to which we project our
anxieties and from we expect solutions to our conflicts. The communications
problem is currently one of the most common and powerful metaphors for
the confusion and hope of our times
• Excellence in Communication considered as the main motor-engine for
fuelling the making-sense of food

3. FORMS OF FOOD MEDIATIZATION
MAIN QUESTION
How networked roles and practices are transforming the food
communication and its meanings?
• ECOLOGY OF COMMUNICATION
- INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL IDENTITIES
- SOCIAL MARKETING
- INNOVATIVE RESEARCH
- CONSUMER POLITICS
• FOOD AS INFORMATION
- WIDENING THE FOCUS
- BLURRING BOUNDARIES

4. THE MEDIATION OF FOOD IN OUR NETWORKED ERA
BLURRING
BOUNDARIES
Official Bodies Expert
bloggers
stakeholders
BROADENING Eatertainment
THE
FOCUS Consumers
Food companies

5. WIDENING THE FOCUS,
BLURRING THE BOUNDARIES
How are food meanings shaped for • The communicative turn implies
and through communication? “a symbolic process whereby
foodways are produced,
maintained, and transformed”
• Human communication is part of social
interaction and can be cooperative as well • Who with Whom and How is
as conflictive…
communicating about food?
• And is concerned with the production of
meaning and a shared understanding of • Dialectic process of food
reality
mediation and mediatization
MAIN PREMISE
• The claim-making process with
primary definers, designers of
Communication is languages, and constructors of
constitutive of the identities
meaning-making process

6. THE MEDIATION OF FOOD
IN OUR NETWORKED ERA
Consumption-Identity • Topic-Sources
-Representation-
Production-Regulation • Focus-Eatertainment
CONSUMER-CULTURAL • Style-Channels
-LIFESTYLE-
INSTITUTIONAL POLITICS
FOOD SUPERHIGHWAY
Communication is the key
to explore the articulation of the processes involved
in the circuit of food cultures

7. THE CIRCUIT OF CULTURE
Culture, Media and Identities
Doing Cultural Studies
THE STORY OF THE SONY WALKMAN
(Du Gay et al. 1997)

8. Catalan Journal of Communication
& Cultural Studies
Special Issue 5.2
Communication and food for health benefits
Negotiating meanings in networked times
• Communication has become a central issue in food health policies
• There is growing concern about how best to communicate the benefits of better
food practices and healthy diets that can reduce food-related illnesses and
health-care costs
• Social and cultural influences frame food and health issues in terms of diet,
education, and consumption decisions
• Social networks interact in the negotiation of meanings surrounding food
communication policies and practices

9. Catalan Journal of Communication
& Cultural Studies
The development of new food technologies offers huge
potential to improve the overall health of populations,
general well-being and consumer confidence
• Agriculture and the food industry are becoming increasingly strategic in
all national contexts and food communication practices can have a
significant effect on both companies and consumers
• For this issue CJCS welcomes articles from a media and
communication studies perspective on food for health benefits exploring
the links between institutions, companies, new and traditional media and
health choices by consumers
Deadline for articles: 31 January 2013

10. PRESENTATION OF SPEAKERS: First Section
Innovative blogging experiences and best
communicative practices
• Txàber Allué • Sonia Riesco
SHARING COOKING WITH Aims to share and to
THE WORLD AND socialize through the
SOMETHING ELSE AND social web the knowledge
MORE generated in the project
with the public
(consumer, food industry
and I+R agents related)

11. PRESENTATION OF SPEAKERS: Second Section
Communicating science for health
• Javier Sampedro • Pere Estupinyà
He defines himself
as a scientific
omnivore who
writes about
science as an
excuse to learn
Buen dibujante y mal guitarrista de more about, and
jazz, su lema es: enjoy, its wonders
"Si no les gustan tengo otros"

12. PRESENTATION OF SPEAKERS: Third Section
Food, science, culture and society
• Mabel Gràcia
• Cinta S. Bellmunt
• Basic lines of research
She defines herself as a Food cultures, gender, body and
vocational journalist highly health, eating disorders, obesity
motivated to learn
• Supplementary research
The IPHES is considered a point Discourses and advertising praxis,
of reference in the use of the medicalisation and
Information and Communication mercantilisation of food, food
Technologies to socialize science sovereignty, social and gender
inequality

13. PRESENTATION OF SPEAKERS: Fourth Section
Food for health communication
in our networked time
Both regarding advertising and public
MAITRE helps food researchers relations as well as journalism and
foster a better understanding audiovisual communication, the
between them and the public by profile of our group is focused on
employing improved preferential lines such as:
communication skills
• the risk communication
• the political communication
• the institutional communication
• the corporate communication

14. “Food stylists play an
important role in food
as a trendy,
fashionable addition to
modern life”
(Finkelstein, 2003)
“The food stylists can
become an invaluable
communicator through
food images”
“There are
implications for
educationists,
retailers and
marketers and the
consumer
behaviour field”
(Fisher, 2012)

15. PRESENTATION OF SPEAKERS: First Section
EU food for health research: what about communication?
• Jordi Cartanyà • Laura Smillie • Cesc Puiggròs • Lucía Tarro
It aims to become It is the third
an international centre in the world Faculty of
benchmark in Is the keystone of EU whose mission is Medicine
knowledge and risk assessment to research the and Health
competitiveness regarding food and healthy properties Sciences
within the areas of feed safety. Provides of food in order to (URV)
nutrition and independent scientific identify products
health, oenology advice and clear with beneficial
and others. communication on properties
existing and
emerging risks.

16. PRESENTATION OF SPEAKERS: Second Section
Research on food benefits and risks communication
• Aine McConnon • Pieter Rutsaert • Julie Barnett
Professor in Health Research
Main research interests The department of
Agricultural Economics
is specialized RESEARCH INTERESTS
Consumer science and public in education and Risk perception, risk
health nutrition, with a research related to communication; expert models of
particular interest in the economic aspects of the public/users; incorporating
understanding consumer agriculture and food.
Both in education and public/user perspectives in the
perceptions, attitudes and research, the entire development of policy, practice
beliefs in relation to weight chain ‘from farm to fork’ and technology; social influence
control and obesity is taken into account and behaviour change
from a socio economic
point of view.

17. ENJOY
THIS
EVENT