Transcript Media representations and ’educational images’ in the

Media representations
and ’educational
images’ in the
exploration of SR – the
example of food
Marie-Louise Stjerna, Stockholm
University
Imperatives related to food and
eating
we ’should’ eat healthy
 norms of slimness influence the way
we think we should eat
 ’ethic eating’ (related to environmental
issues and animal rights)
 food ’should’ be beautiful and tasty
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Qualitative interviews in two
steps
fourteen men and women living in
and/or working in Stockholm
 first, using a topic guide to explore
themes that have emerged as
significant in earlier research
 second, follow-up, using a series of
pictures of meals from cookery books
and dietary advice
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Photoelicitation approach
In every picture there are ‘triggers’ in
the choice of motive and the
composition and a picture is not
supposed to yield a certain reading
 It is the reflexivity between image and
verbalisation which produces data for
the investigator
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Pictures of meals as a stimuli in
the interview situation
thirteen photographs from cookery
books (both ‘festive’, ‘newer’ and
‘simpler’, more everyday meals)
 two illustrations of dietary graphics in
form of two plates – one for the
omnivore and one for the vegetarian
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Ways of talking about food
and eating
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categorise food into different sorts of foods
contrast one sort of food towards another
food
associate the meal to different contexts
value the meal
position the meal
The importance of
vegetables in a meal
‘I have become more and
more like, for example,
just eating meat and
potatoes or meat and rice
or something like that, I
could eat that sort of food
before and thought it was
alright, also I think I’m
brought up that way, you
had salads at weekends.
and it has changed,
today a plate without
vegetables is poor’
Food and lifestyles
‘at the time I thought we
were pretty grown-up,
because I thought it was
quite adult-food, and then
I felt a bit like, … I mean I
didn’t like beetroots as a
child, so when I ate this
food, I felt very, yeah I felt
grown-up and a bit posh,
because I know it’s good
food, and I like this, yes I
felt a bit like a man of the
world, like as if I knew’
Food and lifestyles
‘often in the market-hall,
when I look at people, I
fantasize, they’re sitting
there and they, they are
probably making careers,
somewhere, they’re
having their lunch break,
but they are looking as
people in control of their
own time, and that’s also
the impression you get,
they are probably running
their own businesses or
being consultants’
The everyday versus the
luxury
‘luxury could also be to
devote yourself to… into
food preparations and…
actually for me luxury food is
probably slow-food, I think,
today.
this feels more like Tuesday
night, there isn’t anything on
telly, the weekend is far
away, messy at home (M
laughs) we have to get
something into our
stomachs, (A laughs)
glooms come thick and fast,
but that s the way it feels
like, despite of the fact I like
sausage’
Food is more than just ‘food’
‘it feels like Mediterranean
and there’s a bowl with
tomatoes and there is
garlic up there and there
is a bench, a bench of
wood, a tablecloth,
textiles in nice colours. it
tells you, it is an Italian
pizzeria, yeah here they
are standing, the pizzabakers and devoting
themselves to the
preparation of the food’
‘You are told what to eat’
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Anna locates the
picture to an
‘educational
context’
It’s circumscribing
your eating – Anna
comes to think of
all things she is not
‘allowed’ to eat
‘It’s for your own sake’
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Anna finds the
vegetarian plate
being more up to
date – both more
‘modern’ and more
‘fun’
The vegetarian
plate only wants
what’s best for you
Preliminary conclusions: central
themes in the SR of what and
how we ‘should’ eat
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Ideas of health – the interviewees build on a
norm of what they consider ‘healthy eating’,
but the meaning of the categories
healthy/unhealthy become more complex
when related to different contexts or given a
more subjective understanding
Ideas of time – in this study time is
portrayed such as the pace of life, standing
out as an important condition in urban
culture affecting our relationship to food and
eating
Preliminary conclusion: identityforming character of food and
eating
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The different identity-position revealed in
the material could be understood as a
cultural repertoire, which people draw on
and strive to or try to avoid in social life
The dynamic character character of notions
of food and eating are being revealed as
tensions between different identity-position
The communicative or argumentative
character of notions of food and eating –
one ‘has to’ argue for different positions
Preliminary conclusion: the
photoelicitation approach
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The interviewee is not only
responding on the food/meal showed
in the picture, but also stresses the
presentation of the food/meal and
reflects on the picture per se – it is
revealed that food and eating are
understood in the context of social life