Just published an article in the journal, Communication Research and Practice, based on my analysis of Singapore media on the topic of novel foods. I examined the language used to discuss 5 categories of novel foods: cultivated meat, plant-based protein, insect protein, fermentation, and microalgae. Cultivated meat is meat made in a lab via animal cells that are then grown through scaffolding, 3D printing, and other new methods.
A comparison of Singapore traditional media (Straits Times Singapore) and social media about these novel foods led to an interesting comparison on how Singaporeans perceive and understand new foods. While traditional media had a highly positive discourse about the technological advances in this field, there was also hesitancy and uncertainty expressed in social media as to what these novel foods were, especially in regard to cultivated meat.
I collaborated with Truescope, a Singapore-based media monitoring company, who crawled the net for traditional and social media comments and articles on curated key terms. The reporting coverage was 1 July 2022 – 30 June 2023. Table 1 below provides a coverage overview with mainly positive sentiment expressed in Traditional Media and negative sentiment in Social Media.
While traditional media leaned into Singapore’s modernist goals of securing food security and positioning itself as a global hub of alternative protein, social media comments illustrated a resistance to this modernization and a fear in being “guinea pigs” and “lab rats” to new technology.
Food is intimately personal and deeply tied to emotional, psychological, and social values. When confronted with change, especially when it is served at the table, there will be a reevaluation of what food means to you, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Read the full article here: