Eating Media: Food's Power as Medium and Message

Producing, preparing, and consuming food may seem the most organic of human activities. We may think of media as technological and artificial. But can we separate our experiences of food from its representation, or from the feelings and ideas it transmits to our bodies? And in what ways does the (human and multispecies) agency of eating transmit to food its meaning and forms? In this program, we will explore the specific audiovisual languages of food that have developed on social media, such as: food photography, recipe tutorials, gardening and foraging guides, expressions of culture, identity and the cultivation of taste, gastrotourism, humor, influencers, branding, advertising, aesthetics, corporate productions, and more. These communication forms not only take food as their subject, but also shape individual and social practices around food. In particular, we will emphasize the ways food (and its representation) is deeply embedded in individual and social experiences of gender, race, class, and other differences, including historical and contemporary forms of colonialism. We will be prompted to think about food as a medium in itself, but also as that which made and continues to make us human. 

Students in this program will learn basic technical and artistic skills involved in creating image and video posts on Instagram: photographing or filming using a smartphone; composing the elements of a post; writing the accompanying narration or caption; and embedding these posts in our class WordPress. Material for developing a mini social media project about our food system will be drawn from our farm and garden practicum, field trips, and our food labs.  

This program also will include weekly seminars involving reading, discussing, and writing about critical texts. Materials will focus on core concepts in social media and food studies, as well as topical selections like Food Instagram: Identity, Influence, and Negotiation (Zenia Kish and Emily J. H. Contois) and case studies like The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage (Christy Spackman). We will view and discuss numerous examples of image and video posts about food on social media to develop media literacies and media analysis skills. Readings will help us understand how power, inequality, and resistance are embedded in the histories and systems of both media and food. We’ll consider, for example, how eating a raw oyster is like reading. With “eating media” we’re tasting while simultaneously having our taste tasted. 

A weekly farm and garden practicum at our campus organic farm, community garden, and/or shellfish garden will provide opportunities for skill building in food production, marketing, and social media projects. Two food labs in our Sustainable Agriculture Lab will provide opportunities for field to flavor cooking, tasting, and story making, including social media documentation practices. 

This is an experiential learning program with required, in-person engagement including an end of week one, all-day Saturday 5 October field trip to the Northwest Chocolate Festival. Please plan for this when you enroll in this program.

This program is linked to Bittersweet: Preparing to Study Cocoa and Permaculture in Trinidad, which is a required fall quarter 4-credit course for students interested in applying for the winter quarter 16-credit study abroad program.  

First-year students interested in Food Studies might consider the program Edible Campus. First-year students interested in Media Arts might consider the program Core Studio.

Anticipated Credit Equivalencies