ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1532-453X

Date of Award

Fall 2024

Language

English

Embargo Period

11-10-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

College/School/Department

Department of Communication

Program

Communication

First Advisor

Piotr Szpunar

Committee Members

Ruhksana Ahmed, Amanda Keeler

Keywords

communication, food media, media studies, collective memory, social media

Subject Categories

Critical and Cultural Studies | Other Film and Media Studies | Social Media | Women's Studies

Abstract

In 1963, Julia Child revolutionized cooking television. Child’s The French Chef, which ran for ten years on the Boston public television station, WGBH, changed how American’s viewed, produced, and consumed food. And in the sixty years since Child’s debut, food media has grown in scope and popularity, increasingly altering how we communicate identity in and through food and foodways. In this dissertation, I examine the relation between food, media, and memory, with particular attention to: how the past moderates the connection between food and identity; how food media produce a sense of place integral to identity; and how food media reinforces the gendered, racial, and class structures of identity. Through a qualitative analysis of three case studies—a podcast, a social media account, and a television program, respectively—I argue that food media and its application of imagined digital commensality, vis-à-vis nostalgia, creates spaces that rely on and perpetuate dominant perceptions of gender, class, and race.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

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