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'Helping Australia grow': supermarkets, television cooking shows, and the strategic manufacture of consumer trust
Citation
Phillipov, M, 'Helping Australia grow': supermarkets, television cooking shows, and the strategic manufacture of consumer trust, Agriculture and Human Values, 33, (3) pp. 587-596. ISSN 0889-048X (2016) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
DOI: doi:10.1007/s10460-015-9643-6
Abstract
From farmers’ markets to primetime television
cooking shows, notions of ‘knowing where our food comes
from’ and ‘reconnecting’ with the sources of our food are
now central to a range of contemporary cultural movements
and popular media texts. While these ideas have
primarily been mobilized by those with activist commitments
to ethical and sustainable food production, they are
also increasingly appearing in the media and marketing
strategies of large agribusiness and retailing corporations,
including those of the major Australian supermarkets. This
paper explores some of the techniques currently used by
major supermarkets to respond to criticisms about their
food ethics, market control and relationship with producers.
Using a case study of Australian supermarket Coles
and its integration of its ‘Helping Australia Grow’ campaign
into reality television cooking show, My Kitchen
Rules, it will consider the textual practices of, and social
media response to, Coles’ sponsorship and integrated
advertising strategies of putting a ‘face’ to the farmers who
produce the products found on supermarket shelves. By
emphasizing to Coles customers that they, too, can ‘know
where their food comes from’ and that their purchasing
decisions support individual farmers and family farms
rather than large conglomerates, these strategies help to
locate Coles within a network of meanings that seek to both
shift and contest negative perceptions of the supermarket
chain’s corporate practices and food politics in ways that
potentially complicate the activist discourses from which
they draw.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | supermarkets, advertising, farmers, television cooking shows |
| Research Division: | Language, Communication and Culture |
| Research Group: | Communication and media studies |
| Research Field: | Media studies |
| Objective Division: | Culture and Society |
| Objective Group: | Communication |
| Objective Field: | The media |
| UTAS Author: | Phillipov, M (Dr Michelle Phillipov) |
| ID Code: | 110519 |
| Year Published: | 2016 |
| Funding Support: | Australian Research Council (DE140101412) |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 12 |
| Deposited By: | School of Social Sciences |
| Deposited On: | 2016-07-29 |
| Last Modified: | 2018-02-17 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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