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You Are What You Eat: Investigating Food Discourse and Digitally- Mediated Identities

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You Are What You Eat: Investigating Food Discourse and Digitally- Mediated Identities University of Rhode Island DigitalCommons@URI Open Access Dissertations 2016 You Are What You Eat: Investigating Food Discourse and Digitally- Mediated Identities Katelyn Leigh Burton University of Rhode Island, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss Recommended Citation Burton, Katelyn Leigh, "You Are What You Eat: Investigating Food Discourse and Digitally-Mediated Identities" (2016). Open Access Dissertations. Paper 432. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/oa_diss/432 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact [email protected]. YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT: INVESTIGATING FOOD DISCOURSE AND DIGITALLY-MEDIATED IDENTITIES BY KATELYN LEIGH BURTON A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2016 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION OF KATELYN BURTON APPROVED: Dissertation Committee: Major Professor: Kim Hensley Owens Jeremiah Dyehouse Stephen Wood Nasser H. Zawia DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND 2016 Abstract My dissertation, You Are What You Eat: Understanding Food Discourse and Digitally Mediated Identities, investigates the rhetorical nature of digital identity creation and management and the role of food discourse within these practices. According to Pierre Bourdieu (1984), “Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar” (6)…and perhaps also between the delicious and the unappetizing, fast food and haute cuisine. Within this project, I use a rhetorical lens to explore digital identity constructions within the food blogging community. This study is driven by a dual exigency: to better understand digital identity practices and the rhetorical power of food. First, this project is motivated by Sherry Turkle’s investigation into online gaming identity in Life on the Screen, and the need to understand identity-shaping practices in the rapidly changing digital realm. Studies of the blogging community often focus on the identities written on the screen. While these studies make great strides toward a more comprehensive understanding of the blogging community as it exists online, my study expands upon this research to help obtain a clearer picture of the invention and composing practices that also occur off the screen, those that create the finished product published online. And, second, it is motivated by a need to better understand the rhetorics of food as they function in everyday discourse. Rhetorical scholars have studied food rhetoric as a pedagogical tool (Bloom, 2008; Cognard-Black and Goldthwaite, 2008; Waxman, 2008) or as an isolated text (Nowacek and Nowacek, 2008; Schneider, 2008). My project extends rhetorical food studies to the places where they are most often and most richly practiced; namely, in the homes (and in the digital environments) of those who engage in the culinary arts on a daily basis. Food rhetoric is embedded with complex undertones of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomics, and moral values, which this project works to unpack. This study is what Robert Stake (2000) refers to as a “collective case study” (437). Each case study within this project focuses on one individual food blogger and his or her daily cooking, writing, and blogging practices. Each participant took part in a number of qualitative research methods including semi-structured interviews, informal observations of blog-related activities, and weeklong reflective writing logs. I also conducted a thorough artifact analysis of each participant’s blog, coding for a variety of quantitative and qualitative factors such as number of words per post, frequency of sponsorships, and themes discussed in each post. My intention in using these diverse methods was to paint a fuller picture of the cooking and blogging practices of individual bloggers by exploring their behavior both on the screen and off. Throughout my analysis, the concept of ethos emerges as a unifying theme. Ethos is shaped by bloggers’ decisions about self-disclosure, engagement in community-building practices, and, in some cases, attempts to monetize their blogs and navigate the tensions between food professionals and food hobbyists. Each of these individual decisions contributes to a much larger digital identity—and digital ethos—that ultimately determines how others perceive of and respond to a blogger. This project argues that ethos-building strategies differ markedly in online and offline spaces and advocates for greater awareness regarding the ways all writers rhetorically craft their identities—and ethos—online. Bloggers, composition instructors, and students can all benefit from a more intentional approach to their own digital identities and this project offers a framework for approaching this new and dynamic challenge. Dedication “Chocolate has given occasion to profound dissertations.” -Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Thank you to my three blogger participants who so generously donated their time, their thoughts, and their delicious cooking to this study. Thank you to my dissertation advisor, Kim Hensley Owens, for looking at countless drafts, responding to frantic emails, and offering constant moral support. You are a true superhero. Thank you to my partner in crime, Patrick Prager, for supplying constant encouragement through the stress-filled lows of this process and supplying champagne to celebrate the highs. v Preface It was 2011 when I moved from Kansas to Rhode Island to pursue my PhD. Initially it seemed like an adventure, but I quickly realized that moving cross-country with no family, no friends, and no support system was much more terrifying than I had imagined. And so, in an effort to create a community for myself I ventured into the world of food blogging. I had been a loyal food blog reader for years and decided that actively participating in this community—starting my own blog—would help me feel a sense of community I was suddenly lacking. And I did find that community, but as I continued blogging and gaining readers, I also stumbled upon a truth I hadn’t expected: that is, I began to struggle with the identity I was conveying via my blog. The blog began as an experiment during a turbulent time of my life. I was independent, living in a new state, and entering a new chapter of my life. As such, I blogged about food, yes, but I also blogged about my dating life, my work, and my experiences living in a new place. The Katy of that early blog was a little sassy, frequently tongue-in-cheek, and some days seemed like a wanna-be Carrie Bradshaw. As the months passed, I became increasingly settled in my new life: making friends, growing accustomed to the pace of my PhD work, and entering into a long- term relationship. These changes all brought new readers to my blog. No longer was I writing to a sea of strangers and friends back home. Now I had to account for new readers…readers from my new life. Friends and colleagues from school, my partner’s family and friends, even friends of friends I barely knew. As I gained more disparate vi groups of readers, my digital identity became increasingly fraught as I agonized over how to appeal to so many different reader needs and expectations. Of course, my story is a classic case of overthinking and one that I hope most bloggers don’t experience. However, these experiences made me curious about how other bloggers experience the act of writing a self online. And, thanks to a few encouraging professors, this dissertation research commenced. I now know that I’m far from the only blogger who has agonized over digital identity and reader response but, moreover, I uncovered some fascinating patterns in the way other bloggers approach this task. I look forward to sharing them with you here. vii Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................... ii Dedication ......................................................................................................................v Preface .......................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ...................................................................................................... viii List of Figures .............................................................................................................. ix Chapter One ..................................................................................................................1 Chapter Two ................................................................................................................30 Chapter Three .............................................................................................................60 Chapter Four ...............................................................................................................90 Chapter Five ..............................................................................................................122 Chapter Six ................................................................................................................145
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