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Understanding emerging forms of food consumption: the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in European food governance
Type
fundamental research project
Start Date
01 January 2013
End Date
01 January 2016
Status
ongoing
Keywords
food governance
consumer
information and communication technologies
new media
food activism
digital activism
Description
This study examines ways in which new media shape consumer activism and food governance.
Contemporary efforts to change the structure and dynamics of food systems often depend on altering the patterns of consumer behaviour. Yet our current models of how consumers source, share and interpret food-related information are being radically challenged by new sources of information, most prominently social media and other web-supported tools of collective organization.
Future interventions into food systems will depend on developing an improved understanding of these new media of consumer activism, the ways in which they mediate the advice and mandate of governing actors, and what they reveal about the types of information important to consumers as well as the forms of action they find effective and feasible.
The key questions to be addressed include the following:
- What kinds of information and communications technologies are available and how are they mobilized to empower food consumers?
- What kind of knowledge counts and who holds the right expertise in this field?
- How is industry involved?
This research examines how consumers use these new systems, whether internet-based consumer organisations, mobile apps or other emergent technologies, and how their engagement is reshaping contemporary modes of food governance.
Contemporary efforts to change the structure and dynamics of food systems often depend on altering the patterns of consumer behaviour. Yet our current models of how consumers source, share and interpret food-related information are being radically challenged by new sources of information, most prominently social media and other web-supported tools of collective organization.
Future interventions into food systems will depend on developing an improved understanding of these new media of consumer activism, the ways in which they mediate the advice and mandate of governing actors, and what they reveal about the types of information important to consumers as well as the forms of action they find effective and feasible.
The key questions to be addressed include the following:
- What kinds of information and communications technologies are available and how are they mobilized to empower food consumers?
- What kind of knowledge counts and who holds the right expertise in this field?
- How is industry involved?
This research examines how consumers use these new systems, whether internet-based consumer organisations, mobile apps or other emergent technologies, and how their engagement is reshaping contemporary modes of food governance.
Leader contributor(s)
Ulijaszek, Stanley
Lezaun, Javier
Dolan, Catherine
Member contributor(s)
Eli, Karin
Partner(s)
Members of the Oxford Food Governance Group [https://oxfordfoodgovernancegroup.wordpress.com ]: Dr. Catherine Dolan, Dr. Karin Eli, Associate Professor Javier Lezaun, Dr. Tanja Schneider, Prof. Stanley Ulijaszek
Funder(s)
Topic(s)
food governance
consumer
information and communication technologies
new media
food activism
digital activism
Method(s)
Virtual ethnography
qualitative interviews
document analysis
Range
School
Range (De)
School
Principal
Oxford Martin School Future of Food Programme, University of Oxford, GB
Division(s)
Eprints ID
245178
5 results
Now showing
1 - 5 of 5
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PublicationDigital food activism: Values, expertise and modes of action(Routledge, 2018-01-15)
;Eli, Karin ;Dolan, Catherine ;Ulijaszek, Stanley ;Eli, Karin ;Dolan, CatherineUlijaszek, StanleyNew information and communication technologies (ICTs) increasingly enable social action and civic organisation, on both local and global scales. Ranging from social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, to mobile apps such as Buycott, and to data sharing wiki platforms and hacktivist projects, the activist landscape is rapidly shifting, collapsing geographic boundaries to form new issue publics and fast, sometimes mercurial, collective action. Within these emerging digital platforms for activism, food-related consumer action is gaining new contours and publics. Focusing on three case studies – a mobile app, a wiki platform, and an online-centric activist organization – we will examine how activist-ICT interactions generate new knowledges and practices in relation to consumer-based food activism. Specifically, we will critically analyse how consumer activists and social entrepreneurs use ICTs to facilitate new or alternative forms of engagement with food, and how ICTs, in turn, shape possibilities for action. Bridging anthropology and science and technology studies, the chapter will develop new understandings of alternative food networks, social movements, activist leadership, and expertise in the digital age. -
PublicationIntroduction - Digital food activism: Food transparency one bite/byte at a time?(Routledge, 2018-01-18)
;Eli, Karin ;Dolan, Catherine ;Ulijaszek, Stanley ;Eli, Karin ;Dolan, CatherineUlijaszek, StanleyThis introductory chapter considers food activism within contemporary ‘digital food cultures’. Based on a review of the literature on food activism and digital activism, we introduce the concept of digital food activism, which we have developed to capture diverse forms of digitally mediated practices of food activism, their distinctiveness and their constitutive effects. We situate these practices within the larger multidisciplinary literature on digital devices, platforms and infrastructures, focusing on the affordances of digital platforms; here, our aim is to explore the kinds of interactions these platforms enable and constrain, and what this means for digital food activism. Building on our own research on digital food activism, which focuses on three case studies – a mobile app, a wiki platform, and an online-centric activist organization - we consider digital platforms used for food activism as ‘infrastructures that give rise to ontological experiments’ (Jensen and Morita, 2015) and call attention to how food is ontologically respecified in the entanglements of diverse types of activists and digital platforms. We illustrate this ontological respecification through an analysis of an auto-ethnographic episode that describes the encounter and entanglement between a researcher-consumer, barcode scanner app, supermarket, water bottle, multi-national corporation, Swiss mountain valley, crowd-sourced database, food-centred campaign and blog post. To conclude, we discuss the implications of this ontological respecification for agency, democracy and economy, and elucidate the similarities and differences between ‘traditional’ food activism (Counihan and Siniscalchi, 2014) and digital food activism. -
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PublicationDigital food activism: power, knowledge, and consumer action( 2016-07-23)
;Eli, Karin ;Ulijaszek, StanleyDolan, CatherineNew information and communication technologies (ICTs) increasingly enable social action and civic organisation, on both local and global scales. Ranging from social media platforms to mobile apps, data sharing wiki platforms, and hacktivist projects, the activist landscape is rapidly shifting, collapsing geographic boundaries to invoke social and ethical values on a transnational scale, and form new issue publics with fast, sometimes mercurial, collective action. Within these emerging digital platforms for activism, food-related consumer action is gaining new contours and publics. In this paper, we explore the emerging field of digital food activism. Digital food activism does not simply refer to food activism that occurs on digital media. Rather, it encompasses forms of food activism enabled and shaped by and through digital media platforms, with the medium as an integral part of the activist project. Focusing on three case studies - a mobile app, a wiki platform, and an online-centric activist organisation - we examine how activist-ICT interactions generate new knowledges and practices in relation to consumer-based food activism. With particular emphasis on the social and ethical values implicated in ICT-enabled food activism, we critically analyse how European consumers and social entrepreneurs use ICTs to facilitate new forms of engagement with food, and how ICTs, in turn, shape possibilities for action. Bridging anthropology and science and technology studies, our analysis develops new understandings of alternative food networks, social movements, political consumerism, and expertise in the digital age.Type: conference paper -
PublicationGovernance by campaign : The co-constitution of food issues, publics and expertise through new information and communication technologies(Routledge, 2017-08-23)
;Eli, Karin ;McLennan, Amy ;Dolan, Catherine ;Lezaun, JavierUlijaszek, StanleyThis paper considers food as a site of public engagement with science and technology. Specifically, we focus on how public engagement with food is envisioned and operationalised by one non-profit organisation, foodwatch. Founded in Germany in 2002, foodwatch extensively uses new information and communication technologies to inform consumers about problematic food industry practices. In this paper, we present our analysis of 50 foodwatch e-newsletters published over a period of one year (2013). We define foodwatch’s approach as ‘governance by campaign’ – an approach marked by simultaneously constituting: (a) key food governance issues, (b) affective publics that address these topics of governance through ICT-enabled media and (c) independent food and food-related expertise. We conclude our paper with a discussion of foodwatch’s mode of ‘governance by campaign’ and the democratic limits and potentials of a governance mode that is based on invited participation.Type: journal articleJournal: Information, communication & society : ICSIssue: onlineScopus© Citations 20