Browsing by Subject "visuaalinen kulttuurintutkimus"

Food is associated with many social practices and symbolic meanings that are culturally bound, separating and connecting members of culture. By studying food cultures, one can gain a deeper understanding of the society of the country in question, the deep structures of the culture and the history of the country. As culture constantly changes with society, so does food culture and its manifestations. As communication technology takes over the sector as a form of social interaction, food cultures are also increasingly shifting to social media as food images serve as a means of communication. This research falls into the fields of cultural research, visual culture research, and food culture research. The aim of the study is to try to find features typical of Finnish and Japanese food culture in social media food images. As the research material consists of a list of pictorial materials, it is also rewarding to look at the aesthetic content that food images contain and how the layout and content of the image are affected by the fact that the food images have been produced for publication in social media. The study emphasizes the cultural-historical approach as the factor that has most shaped Finnish and Japanese food culture. The research material consisted of food images produced by 6 people, of which there were a total of 30. Half of the research subjects and food images represented Finnish food culture and half Japanese food culture. To support the analysis of the images, the subjects' own comments on the food images of their choice were used. This is a qualitative study in which the material was analyzed by means of content analysis. Content analysis was combined with semiotic image analysis, in which reality is interpreted based on the characters and codes present in the images. An even more marginal aspect of socio-semiotics is represented by the social nature of the research material as part of the ways in which people communicate in social media. Despite the small research data, the research provided indications of typical elements that occur in Finnish and Japanese food culture. These include typical ingredients, food rations, cooking methods, and aesthetic perceptions. In Finnish food culture, emphasis was placed on simple dishes that have taken a lot of influence from other countries. Japanese food culture emphasized the preservation of traditions and the use of domestic raw materials.