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.
Online via UI electronic subscription, Researchers used weekly meat production and sales data to assess how media depictions of LFTB affected consumer demand during and after the scare in 2012.
Via Society of Professional Journalists. 15 pages., Jon Marshall's "News Gems" item on the Society of Professional Journalists web site highlights an example of "the best of American journalism." Features a newspaper series about a husband-wife reporter team that spent a week trying to eat only locally grown and raised food.
Retrieved online. 2 pages., "Farming issues typically receive little television coverage, but there has been a wealth of TV programmes on food and agricultural issues during the first two weeks of 2008." Description includes the return of a four-show run on BBC3, "Kill it, Cook it, Eat it."
