This paper examines the media coverage of the 2013 London cultured meat tasting event, particularly in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Using major news outlets, prominent magazines covering food and science issues, and advocacy websites concerning meat consumption, the paper characterizes the overall emphases of the coverage, the tenor of the coverage, and compares the media portrayal of the important issues to the demographic and psychological realities of the actual consumer market into which cultured meat will compete. In particular, the paper argues that Western media gives a distorted picture of what obstacles are in the path of cultured meat acceptance, especially by overemphasizing and overrepresenting the importance of the reception of cultured meat among vegetarians. Promoters of cultured meat should recognize the skewed impression that this media coverage provides and pay attention to the demographic data that suggests strict vegetarians are a demographically negligible group. Resources for promoting cultured meat should focus on the empirical demographics of the consumer market and the empirical psychology of mainstream consumers.
Fritz, Melanie (author), Schiefer, Gerhard (author), and Lehmann, Richard J. (author)
Format:
Paper
Publication Date:
2011-02
Published:
International
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 185 Document Number: D00488
Notes:
Paper presented at the International European Forum on System Dynamics and Innovation in Food Networks, 2011 International European Forum, Innsbruck-Igls, Austria, February 14-18, 2011. 17 pages.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 176 Document Number: C30189
Notes:
Via CattleNetwork. 1 page., Report of remarks by David Martosko of the Center for Consumer Freedom at the 2010 Animal Agriculture Alliance meeting, Arlington, Virginia.
Available online at www.centmapress.org, Findings of a word association task revealed that most participants associated cows, rural areas, and traditional production systems with the cue dairy farms. While purchasing their products, they paid the most attention to attributes such as health and hygiene, indicating that they pay the most attention to product quality and not production quality. Yet more than half indicated that modern production systems contradict their norms and values. Authors concluded that the current modernization efforts in Colombia do not fit to the specific culture of the country.
