Food and Social Media

You Are What You Tweet

By (author) Signe Rousseau

Publication date:

14 June 2012

Length of book:

136 pages

Publisher

AltaMira Press

ISBN-13: 9780759120426

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.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Sweet but Sticky Web
Chapter 1: Food for Sharing
Chapter 2: Food Not for Sharing
Chapter 3: Twitter Feeding: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Chapter 4: Everyone Is a Critic (but Who Is This “Everyone”?)
Chapter 5: The Business of Pleasure
Conclusion: (How) Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think About Food?
Notes
Bibliography
About the Author

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.