What’s in my mince? Reader responses to news coverage about novel plant-based protein foods

Date

2025

Authors

Phillipov, M.
Buddle, E.
McLean, S.
Ankeny, R.

Editors

Advisors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Type:

Journal article

Citation

Food, Culture, and Society, 2025; 28(1):41-59

Statement of Responsibility

Michelle Phillipov, Emily A. Buddle, Sarah McLean and Rachel A. Ankeny

Conference Name

Abstract

Plant-based protein products have recently become more prominent on Australian supermarket shelves. However, despite rapidly increasing interest in meat-free or reduced-meat diets, limited research has explored responses toward these foods. Our research analyses Facebook comments (n = 1384) in response to two ABC News articles that covered the Australian launch of Naturli’s “Minced” product in 2018. Our qualitative analysis generated seven main themes, with comments relatively evenly split between self-declared meat consumers and those who did not eat meat. Our analysis shows that social media comments can provide real-time access to what we term “critical moments” in ongoing debates as well as values, in this case related to meat and meat alternatives. Hence people’s views on contentious topics relating to food are more robust and less open to persuasion than political and industry actors might hope or expect, and alternatives to use of framing approaches are required for any media analysis in domains where conflict is present.

School/Discipline

Dissertation Note

Provenance

Description

Published online: 05 Mar 2024

Access Status

Rights

© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

License

Grant ID

Call number

Persistent link to this record