Janneke de Jonge

Consumer Confidence in the Safety of Food and Newspaper Coverage of Food Safety Issues: A Longitudinal Perspective

This study develops a longitudinal perspective on consumer confidence in the safety of food to explore if, how, and why consumer confidence changes over time. In the first study, a theory-based monitoring instrument for consumer confidence in the safety of food was developed and validated. The monitoring instrument assesses consumer confidence together with its determinants. Model and measurement invariance were validated rigorously before developments in consumer confidence in the safety of food and its determinants were investigated over time. The results from the longitudinal analysis show that across four waves of annual data collection (2003-2006), the framework was stable and that the relative importance of the determinants of confidence was, generally, constant over time. Some changes were observed regarding the mean ratings on the latent constructs. The second study explored how newspaper coverage of food safety related issues affects consumer confidence in the safety of food through subjective consumer recall of food safety incidents. The results show that the newspaper coverage on food safety issues is positively associated with consumer recall of food safety incidents, both in terms of intensity and recency of media coverage.

Attitudes and attitudinal ambivalence change towards nanotechnology applied to food production

The strategic development of novel nanotechnologies will be determined by their public acceptance, which in turn may be influenced by public perceptions of the risks and benefits associated with the specific applications. At the present time, public opinions towards nanotechnologies remain largely inchoate, although this is likely to change with increasing public exposure to relevant information. In two experiments, a total of 618 participants, from the UK population, were provided with different risk–benefit information on nanotechnology application in food. The results show that the provision of both risk and benefit information does not influence average attitude, but results in some individuals becoming more positive and less ambivalent and others more negative and less ambivalent towards nanotechnologies. A third group maintained a neutral attitude and became more ambivalent. It is concluded that to understand public opinion formation about nanotechnology keeping track of polarization and ambivalence is important.