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
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Food information in the social media era:
Analysing consumers’ practices
Mònica Lores
Universitat Rovira i Virgili

2. Information of food issues and nutrition and how it affects to our health
is becoming a great concern among population.
A myriad of different sources are delivering food messages;
ranging from mass media, public institutions, food industry, consumers
organisation, health professionals to social environment like friends and
family.
Difficulties for lay people Contradictory messages and the
of making judgments information available could have a
about which foods one detrimental affect on the public's
should choose. ability to understand messages
about food risks.

3. Effective food communication is paramount for food safety agencies,
experts and stakeholders and, the Internet, and social media channels are
seen as a properly tools to achieve it.
They have expectations and pressure to adopt them.
But are consumers willing to use them?

4. Research Data
Methodology:
 Countries involved: Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands and Spain
 Discourse analysis of 99 in-depth interviews with consumers (stratified
consumer sample)
 Thematic qualitative coding with QSR International’s NVivo 8 and NVivo9
 Data collection: December 2010 - April 2011

5. Consumers’ perceptions on SM
How consumers define a Social Media channel?:
 They do not make a distinction between the Internet and SM channels
 Use of SM channels but not recognision of the term (instead use of “internet” or
“google”)
 Confusion between the terms “Social Media” and “Social Networks” (mainly
Facebook and Twitter)

6. Consumers’ perceptions on SM
Which are the uses of Social Media?:
- For entertainment (keeping in contact with friends and family)
- They don’t currently use social media for food risk and benefit information
- They use online websites (media, official institutions…).

7. Consumers’ perceptions on SM
SM for food R/B information
Positive views Negative views
• SM is the channel where everyone is • Concern of the credibility of the source
when using consumer-generated media:
• An extra source of information is a positive  Environment tends to source anonymity
thing  Democratisation of contents
 Vested interests in socio-political topic
• To target different population groups (ability
to find exactly what you are looking for) • SM is not the place for having a serious
conversation
• Interested on topic of food as leisure (looking
up cooking recipes, restaurants reviews, ...) • Infoxication Need for filter
• In a food crisis situation: quick up-to-date • In a food crisis situation: it could create
alarmism

8. Consumers’ perceptions: Sources of information
• Information from other consumers
 From peers: People in the same personal situation → Blogs and forums are the channels more used
because the information is discussed thoroughly and they can post their questions.
 From “the mass”: Participants consider useful the information provided by the public in general when
searching for a general idea. For example, Wikipedia. But these messages are not very reliable for food and
health information.
To shatter the “information monopoly” (Radin 2006). It is the user who control the way the information is
found.
• Information from the experts
It is considered the most reliable and trustworthy sources of information. However, some participants were not
very interested in contacting the experts trough the Social Media channels.

9. Conclusions
•Most participants trust on the information provided by experts.
•But, lay people is not interested in institutional messages through the SM channels = Experts’ fail in
investigating and discovering consumers’ needs/interests first.
•Blogs and forums are suitable channels for obtaining food information. The reasons are:
• More in depth information (and “specialized”)
• They offer links to other blogs / forums / websites (filter function)
• Food bloggers activity is growing because they focus on different food issues more appealing for the public
•Experts should create alliances (networking) with food bloggers/community managers rather that using new
digital journalists as old journalists.
• SM is about giving voice to the “public”, therefore, experts need to apply participative strategies: “information
monopoly”.

10. COMMUNICATING FOOD FOR HEALTH BENEFITS
 NEW FOOD TRENDS AND MEANINGS 
 PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES AND FOOD COMMUNICATION 
 INNOVATIVE PRACTICES IN COMMUNICATION 
8th – 9th November, 2012
TARRAGONA
Haga clic para modificar el estilo de subtítulo del patrón
Thanks for your attention
monica.lores@urv.cat