Promoting a healthier, younger you: The media marketing of anti-ageing superfoods

Abstract

The growing availability of products labelled ‘superfoods’ has been a major marketing success story. While little scientific evidence supports the claims regarding the health-enhancing, age-defying benefits to be derived from the consumption of superfoods, marketers have been able to effectively promote these products for what they promise. This article explores the pedagogic role performed by media in marketing ‘superfoods’ in the contemporary context of food normlessness (‘gastro-anomy’). Using Foucault’s ideas on the workings of power and governance and drawing on data from an analysis of Australian media items on superfoods published between 1995 and 2014, the article reveals the techniq..