Items where Author is "Schneider, Tanja"

Functional foods and foods derived from genetically modified organisms represent two forms of intervention in the design of foodstuffs that have given rise to distinct political and regulatory dynamics. In Europe, regulatory agencies have tried, unsuccessfully, to affix a definitive legal meaning to these categories of food artificiality. This incomplete process of legal disambiguation has gone hand in hand with the delegation of the responsibility for overseeing new products to consumers, who are asked to continuously consider and assess the qualities of foods when making their choices in the marketplace. In the case of genetically modified foods, we have witnessed strategies of avoidance premised on the consideration of genetic modification as a blemish on the conventional character of foodstuffs. Functional foods, on the other hand, are increasingly mobilized in practices of naturalistic enhancement. What both examples have in common is the open-ended character of their respective regulatory regimes, and the continuous prodding of consumers to involve themselves more intensely in the weighing of their food choices. The result is a particular mode of market activism that we describe as restless consumption.

Neuroscience is increasingly considered a possible basis for new business and management practices. A prominent example of this trend is neuromarketing – a relatively new form of market and consumer research that applies neuroscience to marketing by employing brain imaging or measurement technology to anticipate consumers’ response to, for instance, products, packaging or advertising. In this paper, we draw attention to the ways in which certain neuromarketing technologies simultaneously reveal and enact a particular version of the consumer. The revelation is ironic in the sense that it entails the construction of a contrast between what appears to be the case – consumers’ accounts of why they prefer certain products over others – and what can be shown to be the case as a result of the application of the technology – the hidden or concealed truth. This contrast structure characterises much of the academic and popular literature on neuromarketing, and helps explain the distribution of accountability relations associated with assessments of its effectiveness.

Over the past half century, consumers in Australia have increasingly been
confronted with a plethora of health food products. This paper focuses on health
food that encourages consumption through the promise of health benefits. In this
context, media representation of such food serves as a lens to explore the spread
of consumer culture in Australia. Using a historical perspective, this paper asserts
that in promoting such foods, food “experts” form an advisory nexus in an increasing
context of “gastro-anomy” that Fischler (1980) speaks of. Fifty years of advertising,
editorial content and articles are examined from the Australian Women’s Weekly.
Warde’s (1997) antinomies of tastes are used as a starting point to show how the
anxiety and risks associated with food consumption

Over the past decade consumers in Australia and elsewhere have increasingly been confronted with a fast growing number of health food products. This profusion of health foods is accompanied by a proliferation in popular culture of professional nutritional advice on what is 'good to eat'. The genre of lifestyle magazines is one popular medium via which healthy practices and health foods are frequently reported. In this paper we use a visual discourse analysis of food-related editorial and advertorial content sourced from the long running and popular Australian Women's Weekly to investigate how lifestyle magazines have been one important locus for constituting health conscious consumers. Taking up a Foucauldian governmentality perspective we trace how this active, responsible conceptualization of the consumer, which we refer to 'healty food consumer', has increased in prevalence in the pages of Australian Women's Weekly over time. Based on our analysis we suggest that the editorial and advertorial content offers models of conduct to individuals about what possible preventative activities in which to engage, and plays an important role in shaping how we think about taking care of our health through eating.

This study compares the discourses around food and the family in popular ‘women’s magazines’ in the UK and Australia in the post World War 2 period.

Advertisements for food, editorials and articles on nutrition, food, family and healthy eating are examined and analysed to map the discursive production of the consumer citizens within the regulatory device of the nuclear family over this period.

The social construction of health food over half a century in magazine advertising in the Australian context is examined using documentary evidence and a socio-historical perspective. This paper explores the idea that health foods have over the years been socially constructed by multiple institutional players. Using a socio-historical analysis of one popular magazine, namely The Australian Women’s Weekly and advertising (as the overt manifestation of market forces) specifically we try to identify possible actors.