Reading the newspaper is so last year: an ethnographic vignette
When is the last time that you physically picked up your newspaper and read it? For most of us, it has been a while. Especially when it comes to food journalism, the truth is that barely anyone is reading the physical newspaper. One of the most popular ways nowadays is to just open up your social media and see where people you are following are eating.
I am currently planning a vacation to florida and as I am an organization freak and a die-hard foodie, I just had to have our every meal planned. With it being a technology world, I did not have to have the newspaper shipped up to me to browse through the culture section and pick depending on what was being written about. I did not even head to the newspapers websites to see the articles posted online about local food there. Instead, I opened my Instagram app and simply typed the location I was going to along with food into the search bar. Within seconds I have various Foodstagram blogs and endless options of restaurants and dishes at my fingertips.
The switch from newspaper to social media for food information does cause quite a problem though. While traditional food journalists often posted maybe one or two pictures of their food followed by an in-depth analysis of their thoughts and opinions in taste rather than just presentation, social media often does not. Foodstagrammers typically post a photo of their food followed by a short and sweet caption and some hashtags. With the shortening of attention spans and the need for quick information, readers are not very interested in the long analysis. That poses the question of what is good food? Is it no longer a question of what is the best tasting or which has the freshest ingredients but it is which food looks the best? While foods might look super tasty and fresh with the right lighting and filters on Instagram, there is not as much content when it comes to the taste. Is this a problem? Are people even looking for what is the best tasting food? Or are they looking for which foods are the most Instagrammable for them?
One great example of this is actually a foodstagrammer I will be meeting later today. She mentioned that she was available tonight to meet up but was hesitant about it. When I asked her why she noted that she much preferred eating out during the day as the lighting is much better for her photos. I will be participating in a participant observation of her process of Foodstagramming. Will she post right away? How long will she take to edit the photo? Will she mention anything about the taste? I have a strange vision of her not even eating the food, just taking a picture and posting it and then leaving.
I am interested to compare this to an encounter with a food journalist and to see the difference between the observations of a Foodstagrammer and a traditional food journalists? Will they place the same emphasis on different aspects of the dining experience or will it be more similar than I think?
