Overview

Social media platforms have quickly become integral to most people’s lives, both privately and professionally. This is the first book to illuminate the trend of relying on social media in the food world. Engaging in social media is fun, but it is also rapidly becoming the platform for self-promotion and branding. This entertaining narrative offers an historical account of the major changes brought about by the Internet and also explores the polarities that underlie the challenges of adaptation, including exclusivity versus democracy, professionalism versus amateurism, and business versus pleasure. Loaded with insight into the current scene, it discusses controversies such as celebrity chefs’ tweeting wars, ethics and the accusations of plagiarizing of recipes, and etiquette concerning the practice of photographing a meal to blog about it. Food and Social Media will appeal to anyone with an interest in food and media as well as those who enjoy using any of the social media formats, including blogs, Yelp, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and more, to participate in a digital food community.

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9780759120426

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Often, what we have come to term 'social media' actually reveal themselves to be quite a- or even anti-social in fostering narcissism, alienation, competition and so on. With judiciousness and even-handedness, Signe Rousseau unpacks both the perils and promises of new communication forms of the digital age and insightfully impels us to look closely and critically at the ways food talk today mixes business and pleasure, health and excess, self-interestedness and community, all at once. Hers is a highly ethical call to be responsible about the quite consequential media in-- and of-- our lives. -- Dana Polan, New York University, author of Julia Child's The French Chef Finally, a thoughtful and imaginative book on how the new media landscape is changing the way we think, write, and talk about food! It is required reading for my graduate and senior-level undergraduate students. -- Krishnendu Ray, New York University

This brief book illustrates how social media (Twitter, Facebook, and Yelp, among other sites) have strongly influenced food culture. Rousseau (Univ. of Cape Town, South Africa; Food Media, 2012) invites readers to participate in a multilayered discussion of a wide range of issues related to the topic. These include plagiarism and copyright/fair use issues, restaurant reviews and the ethics of reviewing food establishments, marketing ethics, research strategies to locate authoritative recipes, and health information. This discourse is an entertaining, accessible analysis of an ordinary occurrence: sharing food with others through cyberspace. It is an incredibly engaging, fast read for such a dense, well-researched text. Foodies and academics in many disciplines will appreciate this book; it is also suitable for general readers, students, and anyone in the restaurant/hospitality industries. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels of students, general readers, researchers/faculty, and professionals. CHOICE Often, what we have come to term 'social media' actually reveal themselves to be quite a- or even anti-social in fostering narcissism, alienation, competition and so on. With judiciousness and even-handedness, Signe Rousseau unpacks both the perils and promises of new communication forms of the digital age and insightfully impels us to look closely and critically at the ways food talk today mixes business and pleasure, health and excess, self-interestedness and community, all at once. Hers is a highly ethical call to be responsible about the quite consequential media in- and of- our lives. -- Dana Polan, New York University, author of Julia Child's The French Chef Finally, a thoughtful and imaginative book on how the new media landscape is changing the way we think, write, and talk about food! It is required reading for my graduate and senior-level undergraduate students. -- Krishnendu Ray, chair, Department of Nutrition Food Studies and Public Health, New York University; author of Migrant's Table (2004); co-editor of Curried Cultures (2012)

Author Information

Signe Rousseau teaches at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and is the author of Food Media: Celebrity Chefs and the Politics of Everyday Interference (2012).  

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