This study examined the effects of source expertise and social learning in mainstream food television on viewers’ attitudes, confidence, and behavioural intentions related to food. Following a 2X2 between-subjects design, participants (240) were exposed to two videos, each from a different food television program. Preceding each video, participants were asked to complete a questionnaire measuring the three dependent variables. Using ANOVA, results of this study indicated that exposure to positive social reinforcement can positively affect consumer attitude toward food, while exposure to low source expertise can positively increase consumer confidence in cooking abilities. Social learning and source expertise interacted in their effect on attitude and confidence, while an interaction between gender of the viewer and social learning had an effect on attitude, confidence, and intention. Marketers may use this knowledge when selecting an appropriate medium to advertise food products, and television producers may consider these findings when aiming to increase interest in particular television programs. Other practical implications and contributions are further discussed.

This thesis examines the way in which the concept of authenticity is mobilised throughout popular cultural productions as a politically informed way of constructing value and meaning. It posits authenticity as a cultural category, the composition of which shifts according to the discursive and cultural contexts within which it operates, but whose significance lies in its capacity to signify the genuine, the real, and the fundamental. The thesis further proposes that three discourses are predominant in their participation in the construction and significance of authenticity: community, the natural, and creativity. Through a series of three case-study chapters, the thesis tracks this definition through extended analyses of a variety of cultural texts of different genres and media, and in different topic areas. First it examines the discourses of community and creativity in relation to popular music, drawing on texts such as video clips and film, journalistic writing, and fan discussions, in order to demonstrate that fan communities draw on the commonality of experience and the expressed creativity and skill of the performer in order to draw their own boundaries around what they consider to be authentic and inauthentic. Second, it looks at the discourses of the natural and of community in relation to food television and theorises that a fundamental meaning within the discourses of community—tradition—is at the heart of many valorised food cultures, and that this valorisation is played up in most televisual texts concerning food. Finally, the thesis examines the discourses of community and the natural in relation to travel writing, looking closely at the subgenre of the “villa book,” and claiming that the success of the subgenre is largely due to the intersection of the two key discourses. Similarly, the discourses of community and the natural are obvious within the practices of package-tourism, particularly within online discussions of this sort of travel. The thesis argues that in spite of an academic suspicion about authenticity as a valuing and explanatory mechanism, there is widespread use of the themes of authenticity—largely untheorised and undefined—within popular culture, and that the academy ignores these constructions at its peril. This thesis makes this examination, not in defence of authenticity as an essential, objective fact, but as a powerful, and largely unexamined, explanatory construction that is at the heart of what many people in this society consider important.

By reading food television as a cultural text, through which the nation is narrated and envisioned, this dissertation examines the evolution of Korean food television and its articulation of Koreanness in contemporary globalization. Theoretically, I suggests understanding the nation as a discourse or a regime of truth from the Foucauldian perspective. In order to bring Foucault’s relativistic notion of truth into play, this dissertation employs Fairclough’s three-dimensional approach for critical discourse analysis (CDA). Through this multi-dimensional approach, I aimed to conduct a thick description of Korean food television’s discursive practice with regard to national cuisine and the Korean nation. My historical analysis of food television shows that an increased awareness of cultural others enhances a struggle for nation-ness. By unveiling the “Janus-faced” characteristic of the nation, which is constructed both against and through differences, this dissertation identifies the inextricable relationship between the nation and globalization, and the hierarchical integration processes inherent in cultural hybridization. Moreover, this research project reveals how the nation-state actively appropriates the banality of food and is involved in the production practices of the television industry in order to produce and disseminate hegemonic discourses on the nation, and to keep nationhood near the surface of everyday life. Through an investigation of the interplay between television texts and social conditions, my dissertation also explicates the socially-constructed and the socially-constitutive nature of media discourse, and enriches the discussion regarding the production cultures of the global television industries. / Media & Communication

This paper presents the initiative to research on Food Television and the processes ofglobalization. The research gap in the selected subject area is identified after an in-depthliterature review and watching the culinary documentary ‘Ugly Delicious’. According toscholars globalization processes are influenced by the use of Media, as different channelsare transmitting values shared by globalization. Over the years, globalization has developedsub-process such as cultural globalization, a term which refers to the merge of cultures andthe formation of a global one. The identified research gap is to translate how globalizationhas been communicated in a culinary documentary. The title of the research is, therefore“Food Television and the processes of globalization: How does ‘Ugly Delicious’ userepresentations to portray cultural globalization?”, as it addresses the most pertinentresearch gap. Using visual data, such as video, requires a qualitative approach in which thecontent can be coded and later linked to theoretical knowledge. The role of the researcheris to find examples or patterns that represent cultural globalization within the frame of thetwo seasons of the documentary. The method which shapes this qualitative research is theGrounded Theory approach. A coding sheet will be generated to present the process andthe logic of generating codes.

Thesis (M.P.H.)--University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health, 2008. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 46-05, page: 2658. Adviser: Deanna M. Hoelscher. Includes bibliographical references.

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