Week 18: The Power of Food Advertising: Constructing and Concealing impacts on Racism, Health and Ecology

Impacts of food:

• Global market economics

• Mechanisms of exclusion

• Constructs of class, gender and race

• Responsibility - individual

Food always carries (uncertain) meaning:

• Psychological

• Historical

• Ideological

Roland Barthes, ‘The Rhetoric of the image’ - Defining terms

• Rhetoric

  • The arts of persuasion

• Denotation

  • Literal/primary meaning (e.g. the colour red)

• Connotation:

  • Ideas/feeling/cultural/emotional associations invoked by a word in addition to literal/primary meaning (e.g. red = danger)

• Sign= signifier + signified

• Icon - represents object through similarity

Key questions for Seminar:

• How can food shape constructs of race?

• What responsibilities to consumers and producers have with regard to nutritional value and to ecological impact