| Learning objectives |
To achieve the grade 12, students
should meet the following learning objectives with no or only minor
mistakes or errors: The students should be able to:
- Formulate a set of clear-cut research questions relative to
self-identified real-life examples of fairness challenges connected
with particular food naming and labelling solutions.
- Apply key concepts and methods presented during the course to
analyze such examples (cases) with a view to both communicative,
commercial and legal perspectives.
- Suggest specific adjustments of the design solutions analyzed
which may enhance communicative clarity and
fairness.
|
| Course prerequisites |
The elective is open to students from
all Master Programmes at CBS and to guest students at CBS. The
course language is English. The course may be particularly relevant
for students specializing within and across the fields of
International Business Commmunication, Marketing, and Law.
Cross-disciplinary synergies and teambuilding across academic
orientations are an integrated part of the course. |
| Examination |
|
Spin or fair
speak - when foods talk:
|
| Exam ECTS |
7,5 |
| Examination form |
Home assignment - written product |
| Individual or group exam |
Group exam, max. 3 students in the
group |
|
A final project in Danish or English.
During the course, you will identify a topic and a set of research
questions relating to a self-chosen case which you will use for the
exam project.
The case and topic must be approved by one of the teachers. In
relation to this you will use literature relevant to the course and
the chosen topic.
In group projects, the contributions of the each group member must
be clearly identifiable. |
| Size of written product |
Max. 15 pages |
|
Max. 5 standard pages per student (appendices not
included). |
| Assignment type |
Project |
| Duration |
Written product to be submitted on specified date
and time. |
| Grading scale |
7-step scale |
| Examiner(s) |
One internal examiner |
| Exam period |
Winter and Spring |
| Make-up exam/re-exam |
Same examination form as the ordinary
exam
|
|
| Course content and
structure |
|
On a still more diversified food market, consumers are
increasingly left to base their purchase decisions on what the
product “says” about itself through words, texts, and images on the
packaging rather than on exact knowledge of the product inside. Up
to 80% of our daily purchase decisions are made in-store and take
us a few seconds on average. This increases the risk that consumers
will feel misled by what the packaging “told” in the purchase
situation when later comparing it to the actual product or to
information gained from other sources or elsewhere on the same
package – e.g. when reading “0,4% dried avocado powder” on the
backside of a product that presents itself as guacamole dip.
Assessing the mechanisms behind consumers' decoding of the
"cocktail" of verbal and visual stimuli on food packages
concerns and combines a number of disciplines such as business law,
marketing, design and the cognitive sciences.
The course builds on ongoing cross-disciplinary research at CBS and
will provide the participants with key insights into essential
dimensions of the overall subject, a "language" in which
these can be described and analysed, and hands-on tools for
assessing the fairness or potential misleadingness of individual
food naming and labelling solutions.
.
Main elements of the course are:
1. Foods and consumer decision-making from a fairness perspective.
2. The legal conception of misleading commercial practices and its
operationalization. Can "likeliness to mislead" be
identified and measured?
3. The semiotic cocktail of food labels. Verbal design elements.
4. The semiotic cocktail of food labels. Non-verbal design elements
and brands.
5. Consumer and specialist knowledge meeting and possibly clashing
on the front of package.
6. Semantic potential and knowledge versus visual attention. What
does the consumer look for and what does (s)he make of what (s)he
sees?
7. Case-based group work
8. Test of alternative design solutions across groups. |
| |
A cross-disciplinary cocktail of language, cognition, legal
affairs, design and culture allow the students to gain insights in
and obtain analytical skills in view of avoiding misleading and
deceptive marketing of food products and become creative when it
comes to strengthening fairness in food label communication.
The objectives of the course are to enable the students to
understand, reflect on and apply techniques of fair food
communication by minimising the risks of misleading the big variety
of consumer profiles. The perspective is national as well as
international food markets, and CSR as well as competitiveness
perspectives will be touched upon. To achieve this,
cross-disciplinary methods and models will be used, and problems
will be analysed from the consumers’ as well as the authorities’
and the food producers’ perspectives.
Consumers are increasingly concerned about the ingredients and
nutritional value of the food they eat as well as other factors
like organic labeling, sustainability, fair trade, animal welfare
etc. When all these factors are communicated to more or less well
informed consumers, producers may willingly or unwillingly create
misleading or deceptive food labels. Although this course uses food
labels as an example, the theories and methods presented are
applicable to other products and services which call for
multi-parameter decision making.
The students will get: - a well-founded understanding of and analytical approach to the
central elements of misleading and deceptive practices
- a well-defined vocabulary discussing potential misleading and
deceptive practices
- tools for identifying potential misleading and deceptive
practices in the semiotic cocktail of specific food packages
- consultancy skills in view of sharpening bussinesses’ CSR
profiles nationally and
internationally.
|
|
| Teaching methods |
| The course will draw upon a
substantial body of research, present cases, give examples of
real-life practices and involve areas of knowledge relevant to the
students. Teaching methods will include lectures, discussions,
student presentations and hands-on project work as well as home
assignments. |
| Expected literature |
- Assessing in-store food-to-consumer communication from a
fairness perspective: An integrated approach.Smith, V., Clement, J,
Møgelvang-Hansen, P., & Selsøe Sørensen, H. 2011.
Fachsprache – International Journal of Specialized
Communication, 33(1-2), 84-106.
- Directive 2005/29/EC. Directive of the European Parliament and
of the Council of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair
business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market.
Official Journal L 149, 11/06: 22–39.
- Food Standards Agency. 2000. Better Food Labelling – Written
Responses. Food Standards Agency/FSA.
http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/betterfoodlabellingreport.pdf.
- Food Standards Agency. 2007a. Consumers confused by health
claims. Food Standards Agency/FSA.
http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2007/jul/healthconfuse.
- Food Standards Agency. 2007b. Review and analysis of current
literature on consumer understanding of nutrition and health claims
made on food. Food Standards Agency/FSA.
http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/healthclaims.pdf.
- Spin versus fair speak in food labelling. A matter of taste?
Smith,V., P. Møgelvang-Hansen, and G. Hyldig. 2010. Food Quality
and Preference 21: 1016-1025.
- The impact of health claims on consumer search and product
evaluation outcomes: Results from FDA experimental data. Roe, B.,
Levy, A.S., & Derby, B.M. 1999. Journal of Public Policy
& Marketing18(1): 89-105.
- Various articles, guidelines,
sites.
|
Permalink