Governance by campaign: the co-constitution of food issues, publics and expertise through new information and communication technologies

Schneider, Tanja; Eli, Karin; McLennan, Amy; Dolan, Catherine; Lezaun, Javier; Ulijaszek, Stanley

Abstract

This paper considers food as a site of public engagement with science and technology. Specifically, we focus on how public engagement with food is envisioned and operationalised by one non-profit organisation, foodwatch. Founded in Germany in 2002, foodwatch extensively uses new information and communication technologies to inform consumers about problematic food industry practices. In this paper, we present our analysis of 50 foodwatch e-newsletters published over a period of one year (2013). We define foodwatch’s approach as ‘governance by campaign’ – an approach marked by simultaneously constituting: (a) key food governance issues, (b) affective publics that address these topics of governance through ICT-enabled media and (c) independent food and food-related expertise. We conclude our paper with a discussion of foodwatch’s mode of ‘governance by campaign’ and the democratic limits and potentials of a governance mode that is based on invited participation.

Citation

Schneider, T., Eli, K., McLennan, A., Dolan, C., Lezaun, J., & Ulijaszek, S. (2017). Governance by campaign: the co-constitution of food issues, publics and expertise through new information and communication technologies. Information, Communication and Society, 22(2), 172 -192. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1363264

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 28, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Aug 23, 2017
• Publication Date: Aug 23, 2017
• Deposit Date: Sep 10, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 10, 2017
• Journal: Information, Communication and Society
• Print ISSN: 1369-118X
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-4462
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 22
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 172 -192
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1363264
• Keywords: Politics of food, public participation, interactions experts/public, non-profit organisation, collective action / connective action