JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Local and organic food have increased their importance and market size in recent years. However, attitudes, sentiment and habits related to such food in the context of video social networks have not been thoroughly researched. Given that such media has become one of the most important venues of internet traffic, it is relevant to investigate how sustainable food is communicated through it.

Objective:

This study explored the diffusion paths of local and organic food in YouTube, providing a review of trends, coincidences and differences among video discourses.

Methods:

A combined methodology of webometrics, framing, semantic and sentiment analysis was employed.

Results:

We reported results for two groups: Organic and Local-Organic videos. Although content of 923 videos included mostly the “Good Mother”(34.9%; 35.9%), “Natural Goodness” (27.2%; 29.2%) and “Undermining of Foundations” (18.9%; 20.7%) frames, Organic videos (N=448) were more framed in terms of “Frankenstein” food (8.4% vs. 3.1%), being GMOs a frequent topic among the comments. These videos were better connected in terms of network metrics than the Local-Organic videos (N=475), which were slightly more framed regarding “Responsibility” (6.5% vs. 5.1%) and expressed more positive sentiment (M rank = 564.54; 521.2, Z = 2.15, p < 0.05).

Conclusions:

Results suggest that viewers considered sustainable food as part of a complex system and in a positive light, but that food that is framed as artificial and dangerous sometimes functions as a counterpoint to promote organic food.