United States: Texas Tech Univeristy, Lubbock, Texas
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 204 Document Number: D12460
Notes:
115 pages, Lab grown meat is a new technology being developed as a potential alternative protein source. Although some research has been done about public perception of lab grown meat, no studies to date have analyzed social media content regarding this topic. Still yet, no studies have observed the effects of message themes on public perception of lab grown meat. This two-part study first sought to analyze the Twitter messages discussing lab grown meat using Meltwater, a social media monitoring software. Secondly, the study sought to better understand measures of uncertainty and risk and benefit perceptions after viewing a themed blog post about lab grown meat. In part one, a relevant keyword search from August 28, 2018 to February 28, 2019 collected over 11,000 Twitter messages. Sentiment of messages was analyzed with 47% of messages being neutral. Meltwater identified trending themes that were all closely tied to lab grown meat, and top content posters with the most amount of potential reach were identified. All top posters were found to be news entities or organizations instead of personal Twitter accounts. In part two, participants were randomly assigned one of three themed blog posts against lab grown meat, neutral, or support lab grown meat. Perception questions were asked after viewing the blog post, and a total of 238 responses were collected. Results indicated message theme had a statistically significant effect on risk perception, benefit perception, and intention to share, but not on message evaluation or measures of uncertainty. Further discussion as well as suggestions for future research are included.
Clark, Beth (author), Panzone, Luca A. (author), Stewart, Gavin B. (author), Kyriazakis, Ilias (author), Niemi, Jarkko K. (author), Latvala, Terhi (author), Tranter, Richard (author), Jones, Philip (author), and Frewer, Lynn J. (author)
Format:
Online journal article
Publication Date:
2019-01-10
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 7 Document Number: D10240
Many members of the public and important stakeholders operating at the upper end of the food chain, may be unfamiliar with how food is produced, including within modern animal production systems. The intensification of production is becoming increasingly common in modern farming. However, intensive systems are particularly susceptible to production diseases, with potentially negative consequences for farm animal welfare (FAW). Previous research has demonstrated that the public are concerned about FAW, yet there has been little research into attitudes towards production diseases, and their approval of interventions to reduce these. This research explores the public’s attitudes towards, and preferences for, FAW interventions in five European countries (Finland, Germany, Poland, Spain and the UK). An online survey was conducted for broilers (n = 789), layers (n = 790) and pigs (n = 751). Data were analysed by means of Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA, exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. The results suggest that the public have concerns regarding intensive production systems, in relation to FAW, naturalness and the use of antibiotics. The most preferred interventions were the most “proactive” interventions, namely improved housing and hygiene measures. The least preferred interventions were medicine-based, which raised humane animal care and food safety concerns amongst respondents. The results highlighted the influence of the identified concerns, perceived risks and benefits on attitudes and subsequent behavioural intention, and the importance of supply chain stakeholders addressing these concerns in the subsequent communications with the public.
10 pages, In vitro meat (IVM) grown from animal cells is approaching commercial viability. This technology could enable consumers to circumvent the ethical and environmental issues associated with meat-eating. However, consumer acceptance of IVM is uncertain, and is partly dependent on how the product is framed. This study investigated the effect of different names for IVM on measures of consumer acceptance. Participants (N = 185) were allocated to one of four conditions in an experimental design in which the product name was manipulated to be ‘clean meat’, ‘cultured meat’, ‘animal free meat’, or ‘lab grown meat’. Participants gave word associations and measures of their attitudes and behavioural intentions towards the product. The results indicated that those in the ‘clean meat’ and ‘animal free meat’ conditions had significantly more positive attitudes towards IVM than those in the ‘lab grown meat’ condition, and those in the ‘clean meat’ condition had significantly more positive behavioural intentions towards IVM compared to those in the ‘lab grown meat’ condition. Mediation analyses indicated that the valence of associations accounted for a significant amount of the observed differences, suggesting that anchoring can explain these differences. We discuss these results in the context of social representations theory and give recommendations for future research.
