Research
In our research we apply qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical social research. Currently, research at the junior professorship can be divided into the following thematic areas:
- Social media and everyday alimentary behaviorHide
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With the research area of communication about food on social media platforms and its linkages with everyday actions, we are taking up a current phenomenon that has so far been insufficiently examined from sociological perspectives. The questions of how food communication on social media platforms is connected to the offline food actions of users, and whether we can really speak of ‘food influencers’ in this context, have not yet been answered sufficiently. With literature reviews, media sociological approaches and methods of qualitative social research, we investigate what is known about it so far and whether and how the food-related everyday actions of users are linked to social media food communication.
- Social food discourses related to health and sustainabilityHide
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Social discourses on food and nutrition can tell us a lot about how aspects of food are negotiated, perceived, and understood. Qualitative (e.g., content analysis or discourse analysis) and quantitative (e.g., corpus linguistic) analyses of nutrition-related discourses on TV, newspapers, and magazines as well as on websites and social media platforms offer endless research possibilities. As part of our ongoing research, we focus on various social discourses on food and nutrition. Most recently, for example, we have investigated communicatively constructed understandings of responsibility and sustainability in the food industry. Our findings help to make the action logics of different actors comprehensible and to derive starting points from the different understandings and perceptions uncovered, how individuals, groups and/or organizations can be approached for health- or sustainability-related topics.
- Current events and aspects of food actionHide
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Current events, such as the Corona pandemic, also have an impact on people's dietary behavior. Conducting quantitative online surveys offers the opportunity to collect data on current issues flexibly and independently. Most recently, for example, we used a quantitative online survey to investigate the impact of the Corona contact restrictions on dietary behaviour and eating together on the Christmas holidays in 2020. In our ongoing research, we repeatedly take up current events and investigate how they affect the social perception of nutrition and nutritional behaviour.