Abstract

AZEVEDO, Rosa; MIL-HOMENS, Ana Sofia; CUNHA, Luís M  and  DE MOURA, Ana Pinto. The reporting of food hazards by daily printed media: a case study for the millennium (2000-2017). Acta Port Nutr [online]. 2019, n.18, pp.32-37. ISSN 2183-5985.  https://doi.org/10.21011/apn.2019.1806.

The mass media plays a critical role in the dissemination of information regarding food risk, so that the consumers can learn about the current situation of the food hazards by reading the press. This research aims to evaluate how news related to food risk are handled by a daily newspaper with a national coverage. For this purpose, the titles of the covers were considered for the period from 2000 to 2017. Content analysis was used as a way to identify the same categories from the different covers, a guide was constructed for this effect. From the 335 covers analyzed, it was confirmed that the food hazards were portrayed in the covers of the newspaper, representing about 5% of the covers reported during the study period, and that the most widespread type of hazard was the biological type, followed by the nutritional hazard. Individually, the most commonly reported hazards were obesity, avian flu and BSE. It was also found that BSE was particularly important because it was the hazard that made up the biggest number of headlines. Most of the food risk covers were related to the Portuguese territory.

Keywords : Daily newspaper; Food risk perception; Food hazards.

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