Selling Healthy Lifestyles with Science: Transhistorical Perspectives on Food and Drink Marketing
Today, there is a growing interest in investigating the use of science in food and drink marketing. However, most studies continue to explore and frame this as a contemporary phenomenon, meaning that little is known about its origins and how it has developed over the course of the last 150 years. Protein-enhanced foods, chlorophyll products and smart drinks are just three of the many examples of so-called modern trends that, in fact, have a far longer historical trajectory, with many similar strategies used today to sell them.
Therefore, this volume sets out to historicise our understanding of contemporary food trends by studying the long relationship between science, food and drink marketing and the promotion of healthy lifestyles. Specifically, it aims to bring together contemporary and historical research from a multimodal perspective, considering how scientific discourse and ideas
about health are channelled through visual and material culture (e.g. advertisements, packaging, social media). In doing so, it seeks to foster a cross-disciplinary and cross-temporal dialogue, demonstrating links between past and present ways of marketing food and drink through science.
Some of the questions the book seeks to answer are:
• How do food producers capitalise upon scientific discoveries/innovations to create new products or rebrand existing products?
• How is science employed to make claims about health and wellbeing, and how are these claims manifested linguistically and visually?
• How are products made to appear as good and healthy choices?
• How have these marketing strategies changed or stayed the same across
time?
The editors invite chapter proposals involving high quality research drawing
on diverse methodologies and disciplines that advance the study of the
relationship between science, marketing and healthy eating through visual and
material culture (e.g. advertisements, packaging, social media). Possible
studies include (but are not limited to):
• Case studies of a particular brand/product (past or present)
• Comparative studies (e.g. comparison of past and present marketing practices for same brand/product)
• Diachronic studies (e.g. how a particular marketing practice has changed over time)
• Transhistorical studies (e.g. tracing the historical origins of a seemingly contemporary food trend)
• Historical studies (e.g. uncovering a forgotten past food trend)
Essential to all of these studies is the role of science and how it is used
to construct discourses of truth around healthy eating.
Proposals
Chapter proposals should be submitted on a single-spaced page, and should
include your name, affiliation, email address, a tentative title and abstract
(200 words maximum). Please also include a brief biography (300 words
maximum) and relevant high-quality publications. Chapter proposals must be
emailed as a single Word file document consisting of 2 pages to Lauren Alex O’Hagan ((lauren.ohagan /at/ oru.se) ) and Göran Eriksson ((goran.eriksson /at/ oru.se) )
by 31st May.
Chapter Submission
Full chapters, ranging from 6,000 to 10,000 words in Times New Roman 12, double spaced text, inclusive of title, abstract, manuscript and references, should be submitted as a Microsoft Word email attachment by date TBC.
Graphics and images may be included.
Send enquiries and proposals to: Lauren Alex O’Hagan ((lauren.ohagan /at/ oru.se) ) and Göran Eriksson ((goran.eriksson /at/ oru.se) )