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The making of healthy and moral snacks: A multimodal critical discourse analysis of corporate storytelling
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2394-9959
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1089-5819
2019 (English)In: Discourse, Context & Media, ISSN 2211-6958, E-ISSN 2211-6966, Vol. 32, article id 100347Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This paper examines how snack brands represent themselves as producers of healthy food through corporatestories on their websites. The increased emphasis on health in ‘‘the new public health era” has createda market for products promoted as healthy or with some kind of wellbeing association. Riding onthis trend, many companies have emerged and positioned themselves as providing good food options.Employing the theory of social semiotics and using multimodal critical discourse analysis, we ask the following questions: How do these companies use corporate stories to make themselves appear as a better alternative than their competitors? How do they make their products appear healthy and attractive to consumers? And how can this kind of marketing help consumers choose healthier products? The analysis of 22 corporate stories of healthy snack companies shows that healthy eating is colonized by a moral discourse for marketing and branding purposes. Furthermore, the health qualities these companies claim to have are abstract, symbolic, and commercialized. We argue that these corporate stories provide no meaningful indication as to the healthiness of these products and can mislead consumers to consume less healthy food while having the intention to eat healthily.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier, 2019. Vol. 32, article id 100347
Keywords [en]
Discourse, Multimodal critical discourse analysis, Social semiotics, Healthy diet, Healthy snacks, Corporate stories, Storytelling
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-77803DOI: 10.1016/j.dcm.2019.100347ISI: 000501415900010Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85074144660OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-77803DiVA, id: diva2:1369018
Available from: 2019-11-10 Created: 2019-11-10 Last updated: 2020-01-14Bibliographically approved

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Chen, ArielEriksson, Göran

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