Contamination, deception and ‘othering’: the media framing of the horsemeat scandal
Food and consumption practices are cultural symbols of communities, nations, identity and a collective imaginary which bind people in complex ways. The media framed the 2013 horsemeat scandal by fusing discourses beyond the politics of food. Three recurrent media frames and dominant
discourses converged with wider political debates and cultural stereotypes in circulation in the media around immigration and intertextual discourse on historical food scandals. What this reveals is how food consumption and food-related scandals give rise to affective media debates and frames
which invoke fear of the other and the transgression of a sacred British identity, often juxtaposing ‘Britishness’ with a constructed ‘Otherness’.
Keywords: Eastern Europe; Horsemeat; deception; othering; scandal
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: School of Business and Management, Queen Mary, University of London, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 2: Department of Social Science, Media and Communication, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Publication date: 04 March 2017
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