Ultra-procesed cereal (UPC)
Communication research project
Ricardo Ignacio Prado Hurtado
Digital and interpersonal communication on ultra-processed cereals and its impact on the food literacy of young people in France and Mexico:
A view from sociology and visual anthropology.
Context
Ultra-processed cereals (UPC) are among the products that remain on the border between healthy and harmful, since not all people identify them within the group of what is colloquially called junk food.
In France, the annual consumption of cereals per capita is around two kilograms per year (Roussange, 2021), while in Mexico it is around seven (Kantar, 2018)
Comparatively evaluate the degree of food culture and interpersonal communication of young people aged 20 to 25 who consume cereal in France and Mexico from the cities of Chambéry and Mexico compared to the communication of CUP producing companies, NGOs and peers in socio-digital networks, to establish the level of food literacy they have developed based on their brand awareness and the actions they take.
General Objective
There is a direct relationship between the consumption of AUP and damage to health.
- UPC advertising employs global base concepts: modern, invigorating, practical. (Lifestyle, UPC consumption, Dim. of food).
- Advertising budgets are comparatively huge against NGOs (Productive dimension of UPC and OCS communication).
- Internet is a medium with a poor and permissive legal framework.
- There are intelligent communication networks between NGOs (productive dimensions of UPC and OCS).
- The traditional diet has been modified in young people from F and M (Food culture).
- NGOs ignore young people’s eating skills.
State of the art
- NGO leaders: There are conflicts of interest between brands, government and media.
- Directors of organizations: They are improving their formulas, the government is a barrier.
- Influencers: Brands are not enemies, there are different qualities of products. (bad and good).
- Consuming natural is expensive. Impossible for many sectors.
Qualitative Methodology
Depth Interviews
Focus Group
Non-participant observation
Collaborative camera
Analysis of emotions
Narrative
Autoethnography
Quantitative Methodology
Questionnaires in French and Spanish
Emotion analysis
Garfinkel (2001) distances himself from phenomenology since he gives preference to everyday matters that he calls situated actions or linguistic forms that are interpreted publicly, which he also calls indexical expressions whose use in everyday life means that people have the ability to locate the meaning of things based on something that is public knowledge.
According to Paul Ekman (2003) there are six universal expressions that all people express in reaction to their emotional state: happiness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear and sadness. Ekman (2005) has called it, despite numerous theoretical controversies, an infallible system for unequivocally detecting emotions, or in his words, a perfect lie detector.
To find signs of emotional expressions, special attention was paid to the analysis of the facial expressions of young people in the face of the UPC messages, since the analysis of these during the consumption experience achieves a contrast that is interpreted in numbers and percentages. from the analysis and identification of basic facial expressions.
Here we wanted the face to speak for itself.
In the case of French young people: there are indicators of discomfort, tension between peers, a depressive and boring environment, little coexistence between subjects and with the researcher. NGO messages create a serious and even tense atmosphere. Subjects become irritable.
The wealth of being one more
(Collaborative camera)
In visual anthropology, the camera allows the researcher to share experiences in specific situations (Dion, 2007b). The researcher seeks, through the mediation of the camera, to bring people’s experiences closer to the viewer.
For this reason, methods such as those developed by Jean Rouch (1974, 1994) were used, which does not seek to provide a complete experience through sounds, movement and image, but rather to completely change the epistemological status and methodological functions of the camera.
The collaborative camera methodology not only allows the researcher to be an active part of the group being researched, but also allows for a more comprehensive view of the ethnographic site. In the opinion of Sarah Pink, understanding the ethnographic place as an ethnographic site implies understanding it as a site of analysis and exchange where all the elements and components of the research process converge (Ibanez-Bueno & Marín, 2021).
Touring the house with AR
A fundamental place where life takes place, experiences of use and consumption of communication on UPC is the home, this is where young people begin and end their day. The fast and demanding life of university students leads them to adopt practices that are appropriate to their times, although these are not necessarily the best for their health.
In the environment of young people there are many elements that make them vulnerable to communication about UPC, whether advertising, NGOs or peers. In this place there are several findings that explain the reason for their consumption of this type of product, knowing the damage they cause to health. The multiple devices and screens through which they are integrated into the attention economy are also stored here.
As Yves Citton (2010) points out, today people are faced with a multitude of information that is expressed in different ways, almost all of which are attractive, magnetic and especially beautiful in terms of presentation and material access, thanks to the multiplicity of screens and techniques to express them (Chabert, 2015).
From the position of Jacques Ibanez-Bueno and Ghislaine Chabert (2017), a fundamental part of visual methods, in order to achieve deeper data, is the analysis of the body of the subjects.
The patterns found among young people inside their homes are divided according to the environment. In intimate environments and in solitude, tranquility and relaxation are observed in clothing and body expression. There is no dialogue, the family is in their work spaces. On the other hand, in living environments such as an isolated office, without outside noise. There is openness to coexistence and body expressions, consistent with a musical and happy atmosphere, due to the music of the spots.
Matterport technology was used to generate an immersive experience in the intimate environment of young people and present the various results and findings in three categories: video, images and texts. The platform allows the use of augmented reality in a journey that uses narrative to allow details to be discovered in the form of a visual rally. The objective of this tour is to immersively transport the viewer to the environment of young people in order to abstract from immediate reality and be able to find the main results in the real environment where the consumer experience is lived.
Eye Tracking
Young people in both countries showed coincidences in the points of greatest attention on the spots.
In the following visual exercise, three eye-tracking samples belonging to different people were superimposed. The objective was to show the matching patterns that place their attention on:
a) Packaging and logos
b)Taste shots
c) Faces of the characters.
The VR supermarket
An environment was designed to present itself in virtual reality that ends with a game.
The gallery presents four videos from two different countries and types: A French advertising spot for cereals, a Mexican advertising spot for the same product and brand, a spot for a Mexican NGO, and another French one. On both sides of the virtual video screen, fixed images of the most representative expressions of each informant and the same expressions decoded by means of phase tracking and graphs that indicate the percentage of intensity in each expression appear flanking it.
The gallery environment is a VR representation of the UPC shopping environment, a virtual supermarket, which presents the categories in its aisles, in this case each country, France and Mexico.
At the end of the gallery there is a VR game that presents each of the four UPC communication spots in loop mode. By means of the joystick, one of the four spots can be chosen, to know the expressions and the graphical view, corresponding to them. Pointing to the image shows the technical sheet of each one.
In game mode, use the joystick to point to the spot that corresponds to each pair of expressions and countries. If it is correct, a text appears that briefly explains the relationship between the spot and the expressions.
The goal of designing this gallery and game is to turn the viewer into another participant in the investigation, thus reinforcing the spirit of visual methods, especially the collaborative camera methodology.
There is a rupture between the young consumers of UPC digital communication in France and Mexico and the senders of the messages: producers, influencers and organized civil society that influences their level of food literacy, based on their level of food culture, their interpersonal communication and the brand awareness they hold.
UPC advertising leads young people, despite being aware of the health damage they can cause, to continue consuming them.
THE CEREAL PROJECT • VR APP
The movement of the body
A corpus of audiovisual and photographic pieces was selected to show them to the subjects of the collaborative camera study that met three main characteristics:
- a) Being on the air at the time of the fieldwork on the socio-digital network YouTube and in the case of influencers on the social digital network Instagram, specifically from January to December 2021.
- b) Be institutional advertising of a CUP-producing organization or NGO.
- c) Present products commercially present in France and Mexico.
The corpus includes: the spot for the Kellogg´s® Mexico brand / Videoconference, 30”, the spot for the NGO Alianza por la salud alimentary / Corta por lo Sano, 30”, the spot for the Kellogg´s® brand / Vous c’est vous Nous c’est le Petit Déj! , 30” and finally the spot for the NGO FoodwatchFR / Manger du faux pour de vrai: les scandales de la fraud alimentarire / 1’.
UPC Messages
From the eye tracking analysis (Holmqvist, et al., 2015) conducted on the RealEye platform (2022), it was found that the subjects’ gaze has a large number of convergences, the visual path is similar and the gaze rests on the most representative objects of marketing communication: figures, products, faces, details, slogan and logo. In this research technique, the four spots mentioned in the corpus were used.
Spots from both countries were used to built the corpus: ONG & advertising messages.
Collaborative Camera
Fourth round, all Participants.
Camera planes
Planes proposed by the young participants. Mexico and France.
Heat maps: Eye Tracking
Interviews
Results
Regarding the body and its expressiveness, two patterns are identified, one that is not very expressive when young people are in an intimate environment and another expressive, probably oriented towards socialization, which reacts to the musicality of some audiovisual materials. Both expressions are observed alternately between countries and environment, but coincide in types of communication.
In the case of French young people: a tense and closed, uncomfortable and defensive position is observed when meeting in a group in a designated work space.
In the case of young Mexicans: an open, relaxed and confident position was found because they were in an intimate space.
Findings: Subject prefers to eat cereal with yogurt and not milk. The portions are more abundant than in France, they are served several times. The subject interacts little. He is receptive and attentive to messages. The expressions are little marked.
Qualitative results
- There are few differences between consumption motivators between France and Mexico, due to the fact that the base strategies of CUP are global.
- Love and respect for the brand is predictive in both countries, reinforcing the idea that CUP brand knowledge outweighs food literacy.
Quantitative RESULTS
UTC are presented as healthy, improved and say they do not cause obesity
- NGOs classify them as junk food (UPF).
- The influencers recommend or reject them according to their quality.
- Young people are aware that UPC are harmful.
- The production companies have policies of absolute silence.
- Brands and mascots are loved and respected.
- They are the most practical food according to young people
This methodology allows the researcher to become one more and be part of the experiences and improvements to present real experiences with the mediation of the camera (Dion, 2016).
It was complemented with an analysis of emotions: Happiness, Surprise, annoyance, displeasure, fear, sadness.
The whole vision
Conclusions
- It is confirmed that young people have food education and skills on CUP.
- CUP brand knowledge is superior to food literacy in France and Mexico.
- The actions of young people are very scarce.
- Interpersonal communication as a construct shows a complex phenomenon that merits future lines of research.
- The mixed approach allowed explaining why most of the descriptive hypotheses were rejected.
Thank you!
Ricardo Ignacio Prado Hurtado
Universidad Anáhuac México • Université Savoie Mont Blanc
México City