Trending Food on Facebook

Food and Facebook. I suppose you are thinking they have no direct relationship between each other but in fact Facebook plays a key advertising role for many different types of food.

Food is “subject to corporate control” (Kuttainen, 2013, part 2) with the choices we make as consumers greatly affecting the way society and culture are developed as well as the choices farmers have in producing such food (Patel, 2007, p.8). Facebook enables food corporations to create a page or advertisement for us Facebook users to like or contribute to that page. The more likes or views a page has the more popular or “cool” the site becomes expanding the companies’ business network throughout the world. Facebook also allows us as users to “Check in” and tag our friends at any food place especially large fast food chains like Hungry Jacks or McDonalds.

To increase our status in our respective spaces on Facebook, we may contribute to the more popular sites which clearly demonstrates “…our socially derived desire for our consumption habits to show us in the best possible light” (Atkins & Bowler, 2001, p.272). As Kuttainen (2013, part 2) states reality becomes blurred with fantasy when participating in social networks as we try to build our online identities to demonstrate our best qualities therefore leaving not mentioning the “uncool” foods we consume. For example, if we were a member of a dieting or health fitness page on Facebook we would not share that we have just indulged in McDonalds.

As demonstrated by a Facebook page, Stop Taking Pictures Of Your Food, Just Eat It which detests such acts, the new trend for many social networking users including Facebook is to take photographs of food. Whether it be what we are about to eat, just cooked or demonstrating the bad quality of food in large corporate chains, we as Facebook users now have great power in determining what food should or should not be eaten. Many Facebook pages now illustrate what exactly goes into our foods or the fails of large corporations destroying our food creation myths we got taught when we were young through fairy tales and especially television programs (Patel, 2007, p.6). The photographs of food also contribute to a more ‘national culture’ (Atkins & Bowler, 2001, p.283) by highlighting the national culture our place and the “development of location-specific recipes and food products” (Atkins & Bowler, 2001, p.283). National culture allows citizens of that nation to expand their self-narratives as well as making them feel a sense of pride and belonging to that place through their diet.

Facebook has now joined other advertising avenues like print and television in which large and powerful corporations can heavily influence the choices we as consumers make regarding the food we eat.

References

Atkins, P., Bowler, I. (2001) Food in Society: Economy, Culture, Geography. London: Hodder Headline Group.

Facebook. (2009). Stop Taking Pictures of Your Food, Just Eat It! Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/pages/STOP-TAKING-PICTURES-OF-YOUR-FOOD-JUST-EAT-IT/119933279994

Facebook. (2009). Stop Taking Pictures of Your Food, Just Eat It! [Image] https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150292234014995&set=pb.119933279994.-2207520000.1379406109.&type=3&theater

Kuttainen, V. (2013). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place,  Lecture 7: Food Networks Part 2b. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBp0kLOUOiQ

Pattel, R. (2007) Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System. Melbourne, Australia: Shwartz Publishing Pty Ltd.