Mediacology

I’m having a hard time digesting this ad. First off, it draws upon McDonald’s marketing brilliance which relies upon a mnemonic memory device– a simple melodic jingle–to program our memory. The song is catchy and weird, perfect for the Gen X ironic set.

But then the creepiness factor sets it.

How do we reconcile the cute animated [...]

Yep. American food culture is truly dysfunctional.
Via Boing Boing

Sometimes it’s hard to make the case that most chow advertisements are a kind of food porn, but then the advertising gods deliver us something like this to make our point a little easier.

Though I haven’t seen Food, Inc., this looks to be another promising documentary about our monocultural food system. The film’s trailer starts off with a quick lesson in media literacy by juxtaposing the images of food market/ing with the reality food production. It should be noted, however, that the top PR and propaganda spinners know [...]

Jacqueline Hassink explores sacred spaces of multinational capitalism: boardrooms of banks and corporations, and fitting rooms of haute couture. The above image is from Nestle’s boardroom. What strikes me about it is the far wall, which is the old Mercator map projection originally designed for shipping. In essence it’s a colonial map because of the obvious [...]

Slap and chop your diet? So much for slow food.

Maybe without intending to do so, this video ends up being a pretty good deconstruction of our food system. As a humorous remix of Steve Porter’s Slap Chop, it decontextualizes popular (mis)conceptions of food: that it’s boring; it’s something needing to be done quickly and on [...]

If you don’t have time to read Michael Pollan’s books, then at least watch this video. He makes a terrific argument for avoiding any foods that are advertised. This is a perfect example of how sustainability, food and media intersect.

From Democracy Now!:

Michael Pollan is one of the nation’s leading writers and thinkers in this country [...]

Speaking of food, there is more to the Domino’s YouTube PR disaster than a bunch of board teens having fun with their cellphone cameras. It represents another example of the denigration of our food system. In Italy this kind of thing would be unheard of because the places where I buy pizza I have a [...]

Our future?

This just in:

Mallika Chopra: 1,500 Farmers in India Commit Suicide: A Wake-Up Call for Humanity:

The crop failures, which took place in the agricultural state of Chattisgarh, were prompted by falling water levels. Nearby forest depletion and poorly planned government dam projects contributed to the falling water level. Combined with the vicious money-lending schemes that [...]

We have an oil dependent aggricultural system. If people are not able to grow their own food, then we are talking about the death of civilization, and that is no exaggeration (read Soil Not Oil by Vandana Shiva) because peak oil means the breakdown of our monocultural agricultural system. Democrat Rosa Delauro has introduced HR [...]

I thought I was the only one astonished by the marketing of yogurt as a weight-loss product. With all that fat and sugar didn’t someone finally wonder, hmm, isn’t this a bit like ice cream?
Jodi Lipper and Cerina Vincent: Yogurt And Lies – Living on The Huffington Post:
For over 25 years, dairy companies have been [...]

Just because someone on YouTube said this is the first McDonald’s ad, doesn’t make it so. Regardless. This is creepy!

Photo of LA billboard by Antonio Lopez
ChangeThis :: An Eater’s Manifesto:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.
We are entering a postindustrial era of food; for the first [...]

I have a cousin who used to have an herbal supplements business. He gave me some of the best advice in my life: the best medicine is the food you eat. It’s obvious to me that much of what is wrong with the US has to do with food, from the industrial production of it [...]

It’s no wonder that obesity and diabetes are growing so fast in the US:
* 34% of All Food Ads Targeting Children or Teens Are for Candy and Snacks
* Half of All Ads Shown During Children’s Shows Are for Food

New Study Finds That Food Is the Top Product Seen Advertised by Children – Kaiser Family Foundation:
New [...]

When I was in college my co-op had a special junk food brunch. Among other things we ordered sugary cereal, Pop Tarts and Twinkies. The normally staid, academic bunch went temporarily insane (thankfully no one was killed!), breakdancing on top of tables and jamming Twinkies into the ceiling with forks. Those Twinkies stayed there for [...]

No fruit in this package

Fruit Shown on Label Often Not in the Box, Kids’ Food Study Says (Via commondreams.org):
Fruit is a big seller for parents who want to feed their children nutritious food. So it’s no surprise that manufacturers prominently display berries, cherries and oranges on boxes of breakfast cereals, drink cans and yogurt containers.
Berry [...]

They’re not just for trucks stops anymore…
Prime Rib, Minus the Prime-Time TV:
“[National Restaurant Association] surveys show that diners increasingly view restaurants as extensions of their own homes, and a large percent would like to see table-top TVs installed at their favorite eating joint.”

You can thank the media literacy movement for this:
Advertising Age – FTC, HHS Call for Strict Standards in Children’s Food Marketing:

Two government agencies are calling on advertisers to market only healthier food products to children in the continuing clampdown on children’s obesity.