How Today’s Media Influence The Ways We Perceive The Food System On Which We Depend
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My mother cooked for our family with a post-World War II mindset. Bacon and eggs for breakfast. Wonder Bread sandwiches with one slice of American cheese and another slice of ham. Supper typically would be Shake-n-Bake chicken, mashed potatoes, and a canned vegetable, or hamburger and reheated frozen french fries. She upped her meal repertoire game on Sundays with well-done roast beef and on Fridays during Lent with tuna casserole.
As I grew up, I became increasingly aware of what an essential gift nature provides to us. Texts like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and The Sea around Us spoke to me as an integral part of my identity formation. I came to understand that humans are one with the Earth — that we share ecosystems and life forces. I became a tree hugger, an eco-warrior, eco-nut, eagle freak. These derogatory terms for living in ways connected to the planet didn’t faze me — they empowered me.
In the 1970s, the meat-processing industry was in the midst of heartily denying how chemicals like nitrates and nitrites react with meat and form cancer-causing compounds. In 1980 I renounced red meat, adding inhumane animal treatment to my healthy-choices vegetarian rationale.
By the 21st century food’s contributions to climate change became commonly known: Big Agriculture generates about 25% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions are the result of activities like farm machines powered by fossil fuels, fertilizer production, and methane released by livestock. Yet too many people are still unaware that their food choices help to drive emissions. My vegetarianism morphed into a type of eco-advocacy, and the more I learned about the intersection between our food system and climate change, the more I realized that most media stories make no mention of meat or livestock production as a cause of climate change.
It makes sense that a relatively new field of food media literacy is emerging within the context of ecomedia literacy. Food media literacy develops competences to critically evaluate media portrayals of food and their interconnectedness with ecological and social systems. Inviting transparency into the media’s role in food systems can create all kinds of new meanings about our contemporary food system.
The ecomedia literacy lens becomes important to consider when thinking about our food system, as it not only incorporates media literacy practices to analyze environmental issues, but it is also a type of awakening for media literacy practitioners. As eco-literacy scholar Antonio Lopez notes, “To be fair, many of those who teach media or sustainability have difficulty seeing the relationship between media and the environment.”
For example, when we critically analyze the relationship between social media and nutrition, we see how many common dietary behaviors, perceptions, and choices parallel advice of influencers. This is important, as we need to better recognize how media shapes perceptions of food production, consumption habits, and waste generation. In doing so, we can make more informed decisions to choose Earth-friendly foods and learn to advocate for environmentally sound and socially equitable food systems.
Resources
Lopez, Antonio. Ecomedia literacy: Integrating ecology into media education. Rutledge. 2020.
Lopez, Antonio. “Ecomedia: The metaphor that makes a difference.” The Journal of Sustainability Education. May 3, 2020.
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