Media, Communication and Production

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/13

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From killing cows to culturing meat
(2014-05) Buscemi, Francesco
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how in Britain, France and Italy the idea of the living animal is being detached from the action of eating meat. It is an ongoing historical process, which has recently been fuelled by the new issue of cultured meat. Design/methodology/approach: Starting from Goody's developmentalist stages (Production, Distribution, Preparation and Consumption), first this work analyses historically how these stages have undergone the process of the disappearance of the animal origins of meat (animal origins of meat are parts like the head and legs that remind us that once meat was an animal). Second, this paper applies cultured meat to Goody's stage of Production, linking the new product to the historical, above described, process. Findings: The analysis shows that, in the past, Goody's stages of Consumption, Distribution and Preparation witnessed the disappearance of the animal origins of meat, while Production was not affected by the phenomenon. Today, with testing on cultured meat, even the stage of Production has gone through this process. Now, all of Goody's stages are involved in the process. Usually considered a shocking novelty, cultured meat is instead a stage of a historical process. Originality/value: No one has previously analysed the disappearance of the animal origins of meat relating it to Goody's stages, and a current issue like cultured meat has never been considered a further step of this process. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Television as a trattoria: Constructing the woman in the kitchen on Italian food shows
(2014-06) Buscemi, Francesco
This article analyses the gender issues raised by the representation of the woman in the kitchen on Italian food TV. In Italy, food and women have always been constructed as a whole, but today this model seems to be redundant. Controversial postfeminist readings of Nigella's cooking shows and Williams' categories of dominant, emergent and residual help investigate, in a constructivist sense, how Italian TV deals with this social change. Through qualitative, semiotic and gender analyses, the article focuses on three Italian food shows broadcast at noon. Results show that the three programmes mediate the role of the woman, drawing on the model of trattorie, traditional Italian restaurants in which the women cook and the men serve the tables. This negotiation helps balance gender relations without revolutionary outcomes. In fact, at the same time, it modernises the old model of the housewife and does not move the woman out of the kitchen. The Author(s) 2014.