A Recipe for Perfection: A qualitative study in understanding how consumers use food social media trends to navigate the idealised feminine self.
(2023) BUSN39 20231Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Food and the feminine self have always had a profoundly complex relationship. It has been the site of gender oppression, corporeal discipline and more recently, self-pleasure and creativity for women. It is clear that material world foodwork has provided women with a resource to navigate gender ideals, whether from a more traditional or contemporary perspective; this idea extends to foodwork in the digital world and creates a nexus between gender and bodies, food, and social media trends. This research will investigate how consumers utilise food social media trends in order to navigate idealised femininity. This study takes place in the field of Consumer Culture Theory to examine how food social media trends as a marketplace resource are... (More)
- Food and the feminine self have always had a profoundly complex relationship. It has been the site of gender oppression, corporeal discipline and more recently, self-pleasure and creativity for women. It is clear that material world foodwork has provided women with a resource to navigate gender ideals, whether from a more traditional or contemporary perspective; this idea extends to foodwork in the digital world and creates a nexus between gender and bodies, food, and social media trends. This research will investigate how consumers utilise food social media trends in order to navigate idealised femininity. This study takes place in the field of Consumer Culture Theory to examine how food social media trends as a marketplace resource are utilised to navigate the idealised feminine self. Theories from Michel Foucault, the accompanying feminist critiques, and Judith Butler have been used to analyse the empirical findings. This research utilised digital ethnography and netnography to examine the food social media trends, What I eat in a day and Mukbang in order to investigate how consumers utilise the trends to navigate idealised femininity. A total of 16 videos were chosen, eight from each trend, for analysis. We also examined comments left by viewers across the videos. The findings discovered three ways in which consumers navigate idealised femininity on food social media trends. Firstly, consumers utilise food social media trends to uphold traditionally held norms of femininity that make up the idealised self, including unachievable beauty standards, disciplined eating habits and domestic success. Secondly, food social media trends are a site in which the traditional idealised feminine self is seemingly challenged by consumers through the employment of postfeminist agency in eating behaviour, but this idealised feminine self is still upheld by conventionally attractive appearances prosumers who create content within these trends. Thirdly, consumers completely challenge the harshness of the idealised feminine self and work to deconstruct it through the voicing of their criticisms of these food social media trends. After the findings have been analysed, we will discuss the ways in which this research contributes to CCT. Finally, this research concludes with limitations apparent in the research and how food social media trends benefit or harm consumers. Finally, this research provides directions for future research that can expand the phenomenon we have presented here. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9129950
- author
- Tucker, Caitlin LU and Mahood, Georgia LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- BUSN39 20231
- year
- 2023
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Keywords: body, Butler, Consumer Culture Theory, cultural artefacts, disciplined bodies, digital world, domesticity, food, food consumption, food trends, foodwork, Foucault, idealised femininity, identity, gaze, gender performativity, Mulvey, social media, social media trends
- language
- English
- id
- 9129950
- date added to LUP
- 2023-06-29 09:29:17
- date last changed
- 2023-06-29 09:29:17
@misc{9129950,
abstract = {{Food and the feminine self have always had a profoundly complex relationship. It has been the site of gender oppression, corporeal discipline and more recently, self-pleasure and creativity for women. It is clear that material world foodwork has provided women with a resource to navigate gender ideals, whether from a more traditional or contemporary perspective; this idea extends to foodwork in the digital world and creates a nexus between gender and bodies, food, and social media trends. This research will investigate how consumers utilise food social media trends in order to navigate idealised femininity. This study takes place in the field of Consumer Culture Theory to examine how food social media trends as a marketplace resource are utilised to navigate the idealised feminine self. Theories from Michel Foucault, the accompanying feminist critiques, and Judith Butler have been used to analyse the empirical findings. This research utilised digital ethnography and netnography to examine the food social media trends, What I eat in a day and Mukbang in order to investigate how consumers utilise the trends to navigate idealised femininity. A total of 16 videos were chosen, eight from each trend, for analysis. We also examined comments left by viewers across the videos. The findings discovered three ways in which consumers navigate idealised femininity on food social media trends. Firstly, consumers utilise food social media trends to uphold traditionally held norms of femininity that make up the idealised self, including unachievable beauty standards, disciplined eating habits and domestic success. Secondly, food social media trends are a site in which the traditional idealised feminine self is seemingly challenged by consumers through the employment of postfeminist agency in eating behaviour, but this idealised feminine self is still upheld by conventionally attractive appearances prosumers who create content within these trends. Thirdly, consumers completely challenge the harshness of the idealised feminine self and work to deconstruct it through the voicing of their criticisms of these food social media trends. After the findings have been analysed, we will discuss the ways in which this research contributes to CCT. Finally, this research concludes with limitations apparent in the research and how food social media trends benefit or harm consumers. Finally, this research provides directions for future research that can expand the phenomenon we have presented here.}},
author = {{Tucker, Caitlin and Mahood, Georgia}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{A Recipe for Perfection: A qualitative study in understanding how consumers use food social media trends to navigate the idealised feminine self.}},
year = {{2023}},
}