The Discourse of Food Labeling in Hong Kong: Public Policy and Discursive Practice

This project aims to explore discursive practices associated with food labeling. It takes as its site of investigation Hong Kong, an international city which imports 90% of its food and which has recently passed a strict new food labeling law. The project focuses on how this new law and the legal, political, media and consumer discourses surrounding it have affected the discursive practices of manufacturers, marketers and designers as they produce food labels, and the interpretative practices of consumers engaged in the everyday action of choosing a product from the supermarket shelves. It aims to determine:1) How the law has affected the ways manufacturers and marketers design food labels for the Hong Kong market.2) How the law has affected the ways consumers interpret and use food labels.3) How retailers, consumer organizations, politicians and the media act as discursive intermediaries between consumers and manufacturers, and how their discourse affects both how labels are produced and how they are used.The data collection will span a period of eighteen months shortly after the new labeling law takes effect in July 2010. During this period, three kinds of data will be collected. 1) Textual Data (food labels, media reports, government documents), 2) Interview Data (interviews with manufacturers, marketers, retailers, public officials, specialists in healthcare e.g., nutritionists and dieticians, and consumers) 3) Ethnographic Data (including observation of retailer and consumer behavior, spot interviews with shoppers, as well as in-depth case studies of ten families compiled over the duration of the study including periodic interviews and observations of family members’ shopping, cooking and eating behavior as it relates to label use).The data will be analyzed using tools from the three distinct but complementary traditions in discourse analysis: 1) Critical Genre Analysis, an approach that explores the relationship between texts and the professional practices and identities of the discourse communities that produce them, 2) Critical Discourse Analysis, an approach which explores how media and political discourse can shape people’s perceptions of issues, and 3) Mediated Discourse Analysis, which focuses on everyday practices like shopping and preparing meals and explores the role texts take in the moment by moment performance of these practices.The findings of this research will benefit consumers, corporate stakeholders, and government officials. It will inform efforts in consumer education, health promotion, and policymaking, and will also provide industry stakeholders with valuable information on label design and consumer concerns and behavior.