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Capturing the Sustainability Agenda: Organic Foods and Media Discourses on Food Scares, Environment, Genetic Engineering, and Health

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  • Stewart Lockie

Abstract

This paper undertakes a content analysis of newspaper articles from Australia, the UK, and the US concerned with a variety of issues relevant to sustainable food and agriculture from 1996 to 2002. It then goes on to identify the various ways in which sustainability, organic food and agriculture, genetic engineering, genetically modified foods, and food safety are framed both in their own terms and in relation to each other. It finds that despite the many competing approaches to sustainability found in scientific and agricultural production discourses, media discourses tend to reduce this complexity to a straightforward conflict between organic and conventional foods. Despite regular reporting of viewpoints highly critical of organic food and agriculture, this binary opposition produces discourses in which organic foods are seen as more-or-less synonymous with safety, naturalness and nutrition, and their alternatives as artificial, threatening, and untrustworthy. Particularly controversial food-related issues such as genetic engineering, food scares, chemical residues, and regulatory failure are treated as part of the same problem to which organic food offers a trustworthy and easily understood solution. Copyright Springer 2006

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  • Stewart Lockie, 2006. "Capturing the Sustainability Agenda: Organic Foods and Media Discourses on Food Scares, Environment, Genetic Engineering, and Health," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 23(3), pages 313-323, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:23:y:2006:i:3:p:313-323
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-006-9007-3
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Julie Guthman, 2000. "Raising organic: An agro-ecological assessment of grower practices in California," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 17(3), pages 257-266, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Diana Stuart & Michelle Worosz, 2012. "Risk, anti-reflexivity, and ethical neutralization in industrial food processing," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 29(3), pages 287-301, September.
    2. Stewart Lockie, 2009. "Responsibility and agency within alternative food networks: assembling the “citizen consumer”," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 26(3), pages 193-201, September.
    3. Kristie O’Neill, 2018. "Traditional beneficiaries: trade bans, exemptions, and morality embodied in diets," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(2), pages 515-527, June.
    4. Robert Chiles, 2013. "If they come, we will build it: in vitro meat and the discursive struggle over future agrofood expectations," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 30(4), pages 511-523, December.
    5. Valentina Marinescu & Bianca Fox & Darie Cristea & Daniela Roventa-Frumusani & Ramona Marinache & Silvia Branea, 2021. "Talking about Sustainability: How the Media Construct the Public’s Understanding of Sustainable Food in Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-28, April.
    6. Padfield, Rory & Varkkey, Helena & Manzo, Kate & Ganesan, Vignaa, 2023. "Time bomb or gold mine? Policy, sustainability and media representations of tropical peatlands in Malaysia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    7. Douglas H. Constance, 2023. "The doctors of agrifood studies," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(1), pages 31-43, March.
    8. Gregor Wolbring & Theresa Rybchinski, 2013. "Social Sustainability and Its Indicators through a Disability Studies and an Ability Studies Lens," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(11), pages 1-19, November.
    9. Philip Leat & Cesar Revoredo-Giha & Chrysa Lamprinopoulou, 2011. "Scotland’s Food and Drink Policy Discussion: Sustainability Issues in the Food Supply Chain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-27, March.
    10. Jennifer Hayden & Sarah Rocker & Hannah Phillips & Bradley Heins & Andrew Smith & Kathleen Delate, 2018. "The Importance of Social Support and Communities of Practice: Farmer Perceptions of the Challenges and Opportunities of Integrated Crop–Livestock Systems on Organically Managed Farms in the Northern U," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-26, December.
    11. Islam, Shahidul, 2013. "Marketing organic foods through conventional retail outlets," MPRA Paper 107275, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2013.

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