Research Methods in Digital Food Studies

Jonatan Leer is head of food and tourism research at the University College Absalon and has published widely on food culture including Food and Age and Alternative Food Politics, and previously edited the anthology Food and Media. He is visiting lecturer at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy.Stinne Gunder Strøm Krogager is Associate Professor at the Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark. She has published on food, gender and methodologies in, for example, Routledge’s Critical Food Studies, and she is also Editor-in-Chief at the Nordic Journal, MedieKultur: Journal of Media and Communication Research.

"We all know that food has moved online, but how do we study the virtual world of comestibles? This compelling book filles the gap. Research Methods in Digital Food Studies provides thoughtful ideas for how to work with digital food data, including everything from champagne bubbles and online calorie counting to restaurant reviews and YouTube cooking shows. The contributors guide us through a wide array of mediums, platforms and methodological approaches. This book will inspire exciting research incorporating food blogs, hashtags, and food celebrities into our understanding of food and social change."- Josée Johnston, Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto, Canada"This book is a must-read for researchers and students of food in social sciences, humanities and nutritional science! Acknowledging the increased normalization of the digitalization of all aspects of food in society, this anthology presents an excellent collection of concrete methodological 'tricks-of-the-trade' chapters from researchers involved in empirical digital food studies. A contribution which is much needed in the field of food research in general. The collection spans a broad variety of methods approaches and food themes, making it a relevant and interesting read for many food researchers."- Bente Halkier, Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

• 1. Doing Digital Food Studies Part 1: Textual Analysis 2. Textual Analysis in Digital Food Studies: New Approaches to Old Methods 3. Reading Celebrity Food Websites: Poststructural Approaches 4. Analyzing Digital Food Sounds from a Textual Perspective - A Case of Champagne (?) 5. How to Approach Food Texts on YouTube Part 2: Digital Ethnography 6. Fieldwork in Online Foodscapes: How to Bring an Ethnographic Approach to Studies of Digital Food and Digital Eating 7. Beyond the Hashtag: Social Media Ethnography in Food Activism 8. Food Politics and the Media in Digital Times: Researching Household Practices as Forms of Digital Food Activism Digital Tools and Platforms: The Rise of Food Apptivism and Alternative Food Networks 9. Exploring the Food Blogosphere 10. How to Study Online Restaurant Reviews Part 3: User’s Practices 11. Digital Food Tracking: Combining Traditional and Digital Ethnographic Methods to Identify the Influence of Social Media Sharing of Health and Food Upon Users’ Everyday Lives 12. How to Use Digital Media in Food-Related Action Research 13. Food, Design, and Digital Media Part 4: Digital Archives and Network Analysis 14. Archived Web as a Resource in Food History 15. Tracing Culinary Discourse on Facebook: A Digital Methods Approach