The magic is in the mix: a uses and gratifications approach to the cross-media use of food-related media content

Food media content has recently grown tremendously in quantity and types. To understand food media's popularity and the role they play for their audience members, this paper applies a uses and gratifications (U&G) approach to study the recipients' motives for using or encountering various food media. Where do they come across media messages about food? Do they consciously or unconsciously seek or use them, and why? How do they perceive the outcomes of using food media? Twelve focus group interviews were conducted combined with a photovoice task. Results indicate that many of the encounters with food media were accidental in nature. In total, seven gratifications for using food media were confirmed: education, entertainment, social utility, identity-building, passing the time, motivations for healthier eating, and making grocery choices. Affordance-driven gratifications were ease-of-use of a medium, accessibility of -, trust in -, and emotional connection to the medium. This study forms a basis for further audience-centered research on food content so that both scholars and content creators can better understand how food media content can meet recipients' needs and how it can be employed in communication strategies regarding, for example, conveying nutritional information or providing entertainment.