MOTHER KNOWS BEST: UNDERSTANDING MOM BLOGS’ INFLUENCE ON MOMS’ NUTRITION BELIEFS AND HABITS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Maria Helen Kalaitzandonakes May 2019 © 2019 Maria Helen Kalaitzandonakes ABSTRACT Mom bloggers, and more broadly, mom influencers seem to be leaving their mark on parenting trends, but at this point, there is little formal evidence testing their influence. In this study we use manual and automated content analysis on 22 prominent mom bloggers to better understand what they are saying about food and nutrition, then we test several hypotheses about why mom bloggers may be persuasive. We found that mom bloggers built trust by creating an online community, commiserating about the difficulties of mothering with their readers, and by providing useful content, especially kid-friendly recipes. We found mixed results when testing the capacity for opinion leadership directly, but we found some evidence that mom bloggers were more influential than experts on moms’ food purchasing decisions and that relational style writing, often used by bloggers, can also be impactful. Key terms: opinion leaders, mom blog, nutrition BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Maria Kalaitzandonakes is interested in the way that information about food is created, spread, and becomes influential in public policy and consumer behavior. She began pursuing her interest six years ago, by attending the University of Missouri for her dual undergraduate degrees: Science and Agricultural Journalism and Agricultural Economics. She then came to Cornell University to pursue a Master’s in Applied Economics and Management. Beyond her academic experience, her professional experience as a policy intern at the United States Department of Agriculture, her years as a science, agriculture, and food journalist, and her time spent training farmers and regulators have made her acutely aware of how and why food trends take off. She hopes to have a career studying how information streams affect consumer behavior and national food policy. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I’d like to thank my advisors, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher and Dr. Jura Liaukonyte, for funding my project and for the many hours they spent giving me comments and nudging me in the right direction. I’d like to thank Arslan Zulfikar Ali for verifying the content analysis by being a proficient and helpful second coder. Thank you also to my classmates who gave me feedback and support throughout this process. Lastly, I’d like to thank my husband, Matthew, for his constant support, my parents for being my loudest cheerleaders, my friends for many cups of coffee and endless phone calls, and Mav for being my constant study buddy. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………. iii Biographical Sketch …………………………………………………………………………….. iv Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………… v Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………………….. vi List of Figures …………………………………………………………………………………. viii List of Tables …………………………………………………………………………………… ix List of Abbreviations ……………………………………………………………………………. x Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Literature Review ………………………………………………………………………………... 2 Selecting Blogs ………………………………………………………………………………...... 8 About and Disclosure Sections: Methods & Analysis …………………………………………. 11 Blog Posts: Methods & Analysis ………………………………………………………………. 15 Survey: Methods & Analysis …………………………………………………………………... 19 Final Remarks ………………………………………………………………………………...... 39 Appendix 1: Definitions ……………………………………………………………………….. 42 Appendix 2: Blogs ……………………………………………………………………………... 43 Appendix 3: Blogger Demographics …………………………………………………………... 45 Appendix 4: Final Codebook …………………………………………………………………... 48 Appendix 5: Intercoder Agreement ……………………………………………………………. 49 Appendix 6: Survey Questions ………………………………………………………………… 51 Appendix 7: Demographics of Survey Takers …………………………………………………. 60 Appendix 8: Differences Test ………………………………………………………………….. 63 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Sequential Exploratory Flow ………………………………………………………….. 1 Figure 2: Most Frequently Used Terms in Blog Posts …………………………………………. 16 Figure 3: Frequency of Frames ………………………………………………………………… 17 Figure 4: Visualization of Frames Across Blogs ………………………………………………. 18 Figure 5: Survey Flow …………………………………………………………………………. 22 Figure 6: Whole Wheat Ratings Across Treatments …………………………………………… 36 Figure 7: Added Sugar Ratings Across Treatments ……………………………………………. 36 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Details on Chosen Blogs ……………………………………………………………….. 9 Table 2: Percent of Blog Posts Using Topics Across Blogs …………………………………… 19 Table 3: Hypotheses for Information Treatments ……………………………………………... 20 Table 4: Mom Blog and Mom Influencer Interactions ………………………………………… 27 Table 5: Survey Taker Characteristics by Information Treatment Assigned, Whole Wheat…... 27 Table 6: Survey Taker Characteristics by Information Treatment Assigned, Added Sugar…… 28 Table 7: Summary Statistics Across Whole Wheat Treatments ……………………………….. 28 Table 8: Summary Statistics Across Added Sugar Treatments ………………………………... 28 Table 9: Summary Statistics Across Writers, Whole Wheat Treatments ……………………… 29 Table 10: Summary Statistics Across Writers, Added Sugar Treatments ………………………29 Table 11 Summary Statistics Across Writing Style, Whole Wheat Treatments ……………….. 29 Table 12: Summary Statistics Across Writing Style, Added Sugar Treatments ……………….. 29 Table 13: Regression Results for Whole Wheat Willingness to Pay …………………………... 30 Table 14: Regression Results for Added Sugar Willingness to Pay …………………………... 30 Table 15: Regression Results for Whole Wheat Willingness to Pay with Controls …………… 31 Table 16: Regression Results for Added Sugar Willingness to Pay with Controls ……………. 32 Table 17: Likelihood to Purchase Across Whole Wheat Treatments ………………………….. 32 Table 18: Likelihood to Purchase Across Added Sugar Treatments …………………………... 33 Table 19: Regression Results for Whole Wheat Intent to Purchase …………………………… 33 Table 20: Regression Results for Added Sugar Intent to Purchase ……………………………. 34 Table 21: Regression Results for Whole Wheat Intent to Purchase, with Controls …………… 34 Table 22: Regression Results for Added Sugar Intent to Purchase, with Controls …………… 35 Table 23: Relationship between Rating of Helpfulness and Treatment Qualities, Whole Wheat 37 Table 24: Relationship between Rating of Trust and Treatment Qualities, Whole Wheat …….. 37 viii Table 25: Relationship between Rating of Trust and Treatment Qualities, Added Sugar …….. 38 Table 26: Relationship between Rating of Helpfulness and Treatment Qualities, Added Sugar 38 ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS B1 100 Days of Real Food B2 A Mom’s Take B3 Dear Crissy B4 Cool Mom Picks B5 Design Mom B6 Family Focus Blog B7 Fun Cheap Free B8 Jen’s Blah Blah Blog B9 Lady and the Blog B10 Mama's Losin' It B11 Mamavation B12 Mom Blog Society B13 Mom Does Reviews B14 Mom Trends B15 Pretty Prudent B16 Shibley Smiles B17 Slap Dash Mom B18 Sweet T Makes Three B19 The Taylor House B20 Thrifty Nifty Mommy B21 Thrifty Northwest Mom B22 24/7 Moms x A&D Used to indicate About and Disclosure W Used before variables to indicate Whole Wheat treatments were used S Used before variables to indicate Added Sugar treatments were used * Used to indicate a significance level of p < 0.1 ** Used to indicate a significance level of p < 0.05 *** Used to indicate a significance level of p < 0.01 xi Introduction Mothers have a sizeable influence on a child’s diet and therefore, many health outcomes including weight, under or over nutrition, and diseases and disorders. Mom bloggers, and more broadly, mom influencers are increasingly making their mark on food and health trends. At this point, there is little academic evidence that formally explores the influence of mom bloggers. In this study we use mom bloggers as a case study to examine how layperson information channels influence consumers’ food decisions and beliefs. This study specifically helps us begin to understand the level of influence and the mechanisms for influence that mom bloggers have. We follow a Sequential Exploratory approach of a mixed method design (Creswell, 2018), by first beginning with an exploration of qualitative data, including 22 About and Disclosure (A&D) sections of mom blogs and over 155,000 blog posts using the well-studied method of content analysis. Then, we integrate our qualitative findings with the existing literature on mom blogs and formulate hypotheses to test in the second part of the study, a survey evaluating the influence of mom bloggers and experts on the habits and beliefs of US moms regarding nutrition. Figure 1, below, shows the sequential exploratory design. Figure 1: Sequential Exploratory flow 1 We begin with a discussion of several literatures starting with mom blogs, the use of content analysis as a method to investigate communication, the role of opinion leaders in changing behavior and beliefs, and the use of information treatments to test the influence of information. We then follow the literature review with a thorough report of the methods used for blog analysis: beginning with manual content analysis of the A&D sections, followed by automated content analysis of the blog posts. After the blogs methods, we discuss our findings on blog content. The content from the blogs then informed the creation of several information treatments, which are described fully in the survey methods sections. After the survey methods we discuss our survey findings, including