12 pages, Notable differences have been observed in how society perceives and understands the agricultural industry. Consumers today are concerned with how their food is raised and produced, and drastic changes in how information is gathered regarding those subjects have occurred due to the rapid development of digital media. As a result, the agricultural industry has fallen behind in ensuring accurate information is shared about the daily work done to feed the world. A form of digital media that has infiltrated the daily lives of society is social media (SM). This study sought to evaluate the impact established agricultural social media influencers (SMIs) on Instagram can have on changing participants' perceived knowledge regarding several agricultural topics. Participants were recruited through the platform Prolific and were asked to complete an anonymous Qualtrics survey. Survey questions were asked before and after participants were shown example images of agricultural SMIs. Data collected were analyzed utilizing IBM SPSS (Version 28) to compare pre-image and post-image results to determine the contents' impact on participants' perceived knowledge of subjects relating to agriculture. Results indicated significant differences between the pre-image and post-image perceived knowledge results and between different forms of reported engagement willingness.
11 pages., Via online journal article, OBJECTIVES: To examine the impact of social media influencer marketing of foods (healthy and unhealthy) on children’s food intake.
METHODS: In a between-subjects design, 176 children (9–11 years, mean 10.5 ± 0.7 years) were randomly assigned to view mock Instagram profiles of 2 popular YouTube video bloggers (influencers). Profiles featured images of the influencers with unhealthy snacks (participants: n = 58), healthy snacks (n = 59), or nonfood products (n = 59). Subsequently, participants’ ad libitum intake of unhealthy snacks, healthy snacks, and overall intake (combined intake of healthy and unhealthy snacks) were measured.
RESULTS: Children who viewed influencers with unhealthy snacks had significantly increased overall intake (448.3 kilocalories [kcals]; P = .001), and significantly increased intake of unhealthy snacks specifically (388.8 kcals; P = .001), compared with children who viewed influencers with nonfood products (357.1 and 292.2 kcals, respectively). Viewing influencers with healthy snacks did not significantly affect intake.
CONCLUSIONS: Popular social media influencer promotion of food affects children’s food intake. Influencer marketing of unhealthy foods increased children’s immediate food intake, whereas the equivalent marketing of healthy foods had no effect. Increasing the promotion of healthy foods on social media may not be an effective strategy to encourage healthy dietary behaviors in children. More research is needed to understand the impact of digital food marketing and inform appropriate policy action.
