Analysis of the Narrative Grammars of Cultured Meat in UK Food and Farming Media

Abstract

Cultured meat (CM), meat produced through animal-derived cell cultures, has garnered considerable media attention. At the moment, there is a set of ‘loud’ voices and particular ‘grammars’ that primarily dictate the current media framings of CM. To date, very little research has attempted to understand what the food and farming sector think of CM and, moreover, its potential impacts on farmers, their livelihoods and the farming sector more broadly. This study looks to bring to the fore these more marginalised and understudied food and farming voices, in the form of their legacy media and social media narratives, to explore and analyse the construction and circulation of the grammars of CM in digital, online spaces. To this end, through an iterative sampling procedure, we collected and qualitatively and quantitatively analysed the framing grammars of 147 pieces of online discursive and visual media discussing CM from 2017 to 2023. Analysing the discursive grammars of CM suggested three prominent grammars of CM: 1) CM is a ‘solutionist’ technofix for the UK and explicitly Britain post-Brexit, 2) CM is a ‘virtuous’ technology given its environmental and food security possibilities, and 3) CM is ‘in tension’ with the farming sector as well as consumers’ health and taste buds. Farmers in particular perceive CM as an existential threat to their livelihoods and livestock farming, with some of these grammars verging on the conspiratorial. Yet, some farmers did not see CM as a realistic or potential threat. A final grammar surrounded the affordability of CM.