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5. Analysis of food blog
The food blog was launched on 4 th February 2008 at a dedicated website 5 and included 8 topical articles prompting participation in the discussion on food issues.
Overall, most of the responses were induced by Nick Nairn on Food (quality and variety of Scottish produce) and Fast Food (fast food and its impact on diet) topics (22 each), followed by Keeping it Local (local food and tourism) (18), Get them Young (food education at schools) (16) and Living off the Land (growing your own, farming, food education) (14). The least responses were to Gareth Baird on local food production (10) and Billy Johnston ( ASDA) on Food (sustainable food chains and local food availability in supermarkets) (6). No responses were recorded for school cook Christine McNamee's talk about healthy eating, probably due to the relatively late publication of this prompt.
As regards the methodology used in this section, it followed the same steps as the analysis performed in section 4-3 ( i.e., analysis of each response, key themes identified and introduced to a database, data coding, interpretation of themes, and generating meaning from the analysis). When the emerging themes were identified, they were placed within relevant strategic policy objectives according to the definitions provided by the Scottish Government.
5.1 Blog as a method of discussion
As shown in Table 5-1, the Blog responses are largely reflect the overall distribution of themes in the written responses by individuals speaking as consumers and members of the public. The structure of the blog and brevity of comments enabled for thorough identification of detailed themes in the blog. Overall 111 detailed themes were identified in the blog entries. However, as this discussion was not moderated, the responses were often emotionally charged, and due to the anonymity of a web environment, allowed for a free expression of opinions. Neverthelessh, the results could have had more power of generalisation if the blog had been moderated and discussion steered towards certain main policy-related issues. Also, the characteristics of Internet users and individuals preferring this method of communication can affect the profile of responses.
5.2 Results
The raw data for the analysis consisted of the responses to 7 (out of 8) points of view represented on the website (videos and text comments). They yielded altogether 108 valid unique comments. Furthermore, 80 individual respondents were identified, most of them were authors of only 1 entry, which very often was not related to the overall discussion on the blog but just recording the respondent's opinion with regards to a particular issue. 15 internet users wrote their comments more than once and were involved in an interactive exchange.
The overall interaction level between participants of the online discussion was low, except for responses to ASDA's Billy Johnston which were dominated by vegetarian activists.
Due to the nature of the triggers/prompts on the blog web site, the responses focused on the following major areas: Local food (41 occurrences in different themes); Healthy diet (31); Education at school (29); Fish farming and its impact on the environment (26); Fast Food (12); Growing own (11); and Allotments (8).
Positive charge was attributed to those themes which were expressing appreciation of the status quo, acknowledging positive trends (changes) and containing constructive propositions without expressing criticism. Negative charge was ascribed to themes with criticism of the current situation and identifying responsible bodies or negative objects.
On the whole, most of the respondents were constructive and proposing changes leading to improvement rather than expressing criticism pertaining to a given subject matter. Most of negative comments were related to: support of important food related issues by Local Authorities, Government, advancement of rural development and to the current state of food policy. Due to a specific remark by the celebrity chef Nick Nairn, support of and subsidies for fish farming, leading to degradation of the environment, were also criticised. Other visibly negative remarks were related to the quality of education (programmes and delivery), the impact of Scottish diet/fast food on health, supermarkets' power and animal welfare (participating vegetarians). Due to difficulties in establishing the valence of individual themes, the coefficient of influence approach was replaced by a SDV importance rating.
Issues related to Health and Education, Quality, Affordability and Availability of Food are at the top of the list, especially in relation to local food, growing own and food's role in local communities. Table 5-1 summarises all major themes identified in the responses. Detailed list of themes can be accessed on the Annex.
Table 5-1: Ranking of words and phrases according to importance
Theme (words/phrases) | Importance |
|---|
Local | 100.0 |
|---|
Healthy | 92.0 |
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Education | 90.6 |
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Food | 71.6 |
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Farm | 69.8 |
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Education schools children involved | 62.0 |
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Farmed salmon environment | 57.7 |
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Fast food | 55.5 |
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Growing own | 53.1 |
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Scotland | 45.5 |
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Allotment | 45.3 |
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Scotland quality food | 42.6 |
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Local food initiatives | 42.4 |
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Wild | 39.2 |
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Animal | 38.7 |
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Supermarkets | 36.4 |
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Wild fish extinction | 35.8 |
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Government | 35.8 |
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Supermarkets stocking local food | 32.8 |
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Children | 32.0 |
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Local food availability | 32.0 |
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Healthy diet balanced | 28.1 |
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Healthy diet home cooking | 28.1 |
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Healthy diet vegetarian | 27.7 |
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Healthy diet meat | 27.7 |
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Education schools healthy food | 27.7 |
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Local food initiatives example | 27.7 |
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Farmed salmon government support | 27.7 |
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Farmers | 27.7 |
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Local food support | 27.7 |
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5.3 Conclusions
Overall the blog was a valuable source of individual opinions and contributions to the discussion. The content of themes and importance ascribed to the topics correspond with those identified for the written responses from individuals (the broad topic areas of Local, Health and Education are top of the importance listing for the blog, just as they are in Table 4-7). However, due to the interactive exchange among participants and the influence of preceding entries in the blog some topics (such as fish farming) are discussed in more depth.
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