ABSTRACT

This book explores the interrelations between food, technology and knowledge-sharing practices in producing digital food cultures.

Digital Food Cultures adopts an innovative approach to examine representations and practices related to food across a variety of digital media: blogs and vlogs (video blogs), Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, technology developers’ promotional media, online discussion forums and self-tracking apps and devices. The book emphasises the diversity of food cultures available on the internet and other digital media, from those celebrating unrestrained indulgence in food to those advocating very specialised diets requiring intense commitment and focus. While most of the digital media and devices discussed in the book are available and used by people across the world, the authors offer valuable insights into how these global technologies are incorporated into everyday lives in very specific geographical contexts.

This book offers a novel contribution to the rapidly emerging area of digital food studies and provides a framework for understanding contemporary practices related to food production and consumption internationally.

part 1|33 pages

Bodies and affects

chapter 2|16 pages

Self-tracking and digital food cultures

Surveillance and self-representation of the moral ‘healthy’ body

chapter 3|15 pages

Carnivalesque food videos

Excess, gender and affect on YouTube

part 2|46 pages

Healthism and spirituality

chapter 4|15 pages

You are what you Instagram

Clean eating and the symbolic representation of food

chapter 5|14 pages

Healthism and veganism

Discursive constructions of food and health in an online vegan community

chapter 6|15 pages

Working at self and wellness

A critical analysis of vegan vlogs

part 3|48 pages

Expertise and influencers

chapter 7|15 pages

A seat at the table

Amateur restaurant review bloggers and the gastronomic field

chapter 8|15 pages

I see your expertise and raise you mine

Social media foodscapes and the rise of the celebrity chef

chapter 9|16 pages

‘Crazy for Carcass’

Sarah Wilson, foodie-waste femininity and digital whiteness

part 4|31 pages

Spatialities and politics

chapter 10|15 pages

Are you local?

Digital inclusion in participatory foodscapes

part 5|31 pages

Food futures

chapter 12|14 pages

Connected eating

Servitising the human body through digital food technologies

chapter 13|15 pages

From Silicon Valley to table

Solving food problems by making food disappear