In today’s digitally obsessed moment, we sometimes think of food media as only beautiful images of food on Instagram or the latest viral TikTok trend. But food media is much broader than what beckons from our smartphones, and it has a long history.
Food media gathers food images, content, ideas, and stories in various forms: cookbooks, food memoirs, newspaper restaurant reviews and criticism, food art, food films and documentaries, cooking television, blogs, dietary advice, food packaging, advertising, and so on. What’s more, food itself is a medium, as it connects humanity. Food opens up novel, meaningful, and sensory ways of communicating with one another and with the natural world around us.
In this year’s symposium keynote, join us for a special conversation with Dr. Emily Contois who will be thinking deeply, across time and media forms, about how food and food media connect us, and why that bond is so important now. There will also be ample time for audience Q&A and conversation, which is warmly welcome.
Moderated by Sue Ellen Christian, Professor of Communication at Western Michigan University
Emily Contois is the author of “Diners, Dudes and Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture” and co-editor of “Food Instagram: Identity, Influence, and Negotiation.” She has written for such major media outlets as NBC News and Jezebel online women’s magazine; been on podcasts like “Gastropod,” BBC “The Food Chain” and “Food Psych”; and appeared on CBS “This Morning,” “BBC Ideas” and on “Ugly Delicious” with chef David Chang on Netflix.
She holds doctoral and master’s degrees in American Studies from Brown University, as well as a Master of Liberal Arts in gastronomy from Boston University and a Master in Public Health in Public Health Nutrition from University of California, Berkeley. She's Assistant Professor of Media Studies at The University of Tulsa.
Learn more at emilycontois.com.
