Bryant Christopher, Dillard Courtney
Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom.
University Studies, Portland State University, Portland, OR, United States.
Front Nutr. 2019 Jul 3;6:103. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2019.00103. eCollection 2019.
Cultured meat can be produced from growing animal cells rather than as part of a living animal. This technology has the potential to address several of the major ethical, environmental, and public health concerns associated with conventional meat production. However, research has highlighted some consumer uncertainty regarding the concept. Although several studies have examined the media coverage of this new food technology, research linking different frames to differences in consumer attitudes is lacking. In an experimental study, we expose U.S. adults ( = 480) to one of three different frames on cultured meat: "societal benefits," "high tech," and "same meat." We demonstrate that those who encounter cultured meat through the "high tech" frame have significantly more negative attitudes toward the concept, and are significantly less likely to consume it. Worryingly, this has been a very dominant frame in early media coverage of cultured meat. Whilst this is arguably inevitable, since its technologically advanced nature is what makes it newsworthy, we argue that this high tech framing may be causing consumers to develop more negative attitudes toward cultured meat than they otherwise might. Implications for producers and researchers are discussed.
实验室培育肉可以通过培养动物细胞来生产，而不是取自活体动物。这项技术有可能解决与传统肉类生产相关的一些主要伦理、环境和公共卫生问题。然而，研究突出了消费者对这一概念的一些不确定性。尽管有几项研究考察了媒体对这项新食品技术的报道，但缺乏将不同框架与消费者态度差异联系起来的研究。在一项实验研究中，我们让480名美国成年人接触关于实验室培育肉的三种不同框架之一：“社会效益”、“高科技”和“同样的肉”。我们证明，那些通过“高科技”框架接触到实验室培育肉的人对这一概念的负面态度明显更多，并且食用它的可能性也明显更低。令人担忧的是，这一直是早期媒体对实验室培育肉报道中非常占主导地位的框架。虽然这可以说是不可避免的，因为其先进的技术性质使其具有新闻价值，但我们认为这种高科技框架可能导致消费者对实验室培育肉产生比原本更多的负面态度。文中还讨论了对生产者和研究人员的启示。
