23 pages., via online journal, Cultured meat has yet to reach store shelves but is nonetheless a growing issue for consumers, producers, and government regulators, many of whom have taken to social media to discuss it. Using a conceptual framework of social cognitive theory and issues management, this qualitative content analysis investigated social-media discourse surrounding the topic of cultured meat in the United States by describing the content of the discussion in late 2018 and identifying individual influencers and communities of influencers engaged in the discussion. Data were collected from Twitter using listening platform Sysomos MAP. The thematic analysis revealed eight themes: legality and marketing, sustainability, acceptance, business, animal concerns, science and technology, health concerns, and timeline, and indicated that conflicting views and questions about cultured meat exist among conversation participants. Top influencers included philanthropists, government officials, journalists and writers, and animal-welfare advocates. These influencers were grouped into four distinct communities based on interactions with each other and other users. The topics identified in the analysis provide insight into ways in which communicators can enter these conversations, and influencer communities represent groups of users whose broad reach could more easily transmit pro-agriculture messages.
20 pages., via online journal., In a crisis situation, communication is an important asset for safeguarding the reputation of an organization. The communication strategy that is used in a crisis influences the way people perceive the crisis. While extensive research is conducted and clear communication guidelines about crisis communication are provided, current research tends to focus on a single actor in a crisis within a homogeneous stakeholder group. In this article, we analyze whether and how different groups of stakeholders frame a crisis and the extent to which they attribute responsibility for the crisis to actors. The case concerns the use of an illegal lice detergent (fipronil) in eggs in the Netherlands in the summer of 2017. Based on the analysis of Twitter data related to the case using multiple methods (network analysis, a longitudinal analysis and the annotation of a sample of tweets), this study shows that a seemingly simple case in a single sub-arena has different subgroups that use different frames and attribute different responsibilities to different stakeholders. This result implies that a reconsideration of communication strategies during and after a crisis is needed.
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 127 Document Number: D02716
Notes:
Paper presented at the 2014 AAEA/EAAE/CAES joint symposium: Social networks, social media and the economics of food, Montreal, Canada, May 29-30, 2014. 14 pages.
This study examined an organizations’ crisis communication strategy (i.e., crisis response strategy and technical translation strategy) on social media and publics’ cognitive and affective responses. Twenty crisis communication messages posted by Foster Farms regarding a salmonella outbreak and 349 public responses were analyzed. The results showed that a technical translation strategy generated more public acceptances of message and more positive emotions than a crisis response strategy. A crisis response strategy generated more public rejections of message and more negative emotions than a technical translation strategy.
National Pork Board (author) and Lessing-Flynn (author)
Format:
Online document
Publication Date:
2015
Published:
United States: Public Relations Society of America
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 8 Document Number: D10300
Notes:
3 pages., Via Silver Anvil Awards., Consumers have questions about how pigs are raised, and no one knows the answers better than pork producers themselves. Activist groups against pig farming have become increasingly active on social media, where the voices of pork producers were relatively silent. As the connection between pork producers and the food industry, the National Pork Board recognized the potential damage this could cause to the pork industry’s reputation. The #RealPigFarming campaign was born out of a need to engage producers in sharing stories from their farms, and contributing to online conversation about pork production. The results surpassed original goals by 2,730 percent.
Available online at www.centmapress.org, Describes the type of information regarding food shared on Twitter and what kind of network is established between Twitter users in those cases when the #food in question is associated to a geographical area. Findings highlighted differences between the two networks surveyed, both with regard to the actors involved and to the way in which they share information on Twitter.
