Veganism in the Age of COVID

This study examines the new face of veganism with an examination of the British mediascape. Here, I replicate the Cole and Morgan (2011) study, one of the first (and only) existing studies to test vegan media representation. Cole and Morgan’s analysis (which relied on a sample of articles published in 2007) finds that mentions of veganism in British newspapers were few and predominantly negative. In the thirteen years that have passed, I expected that this representation would have changed given the persistence of vegan campaigning, the popularity of Veganuary, and the looming pandemic.<br> I opted to extract a sample across 2020, the first full year of the pandemic and also the year first reporting robust numbers of Veganuary registrants and vegan product releases. A keyword search in LexisNexis of “vegan” in UK newspapers publishing between January 1st and December 31st, 2020 yielded around 41,175 results (excluding 14 in languages other than English). Some leading news sources from the Cole and Morgan study (conducted in 2007) did not surface (<i>Daily Express</i>, <i>News of the World</i>, and the <i>Sunday Telegraph</i>), while Sunday editions that ranked separately from the daily versions in 2007 are now collapsed (The <i>Mirror </i>and the <i>Daily Express</i>). Only 19 newspapers covered veganism in the Cole and Morgan study, but dozens covered veganism in the search I conducted 13 years later in 2020. Due to the dramatic increase in vegan coverage, I was unable to code every result as was possible in the Cole and Morgan study; instead, I coded the first 35 results for each month of 2020 to achieve an approximate sample of 1% (n=420).<br> I based my coding scheme on the approach devised by Cole and Morgan beginning with three basic categories of positive, neutral, and negative. This original study also had several subcodes for negative coverage given that most of the results were negative. Negatively coded articles treated veganism as ridiculous, ascetic, difficult or impossible, a fad, dangerous, overly sensitive, or hostile. These codes were reused. This analysis, however, found much more diversity in coverage, thus necessitating additional subcoding for positive results as well. A positively coded article related either to product spotlights, weight loss, climate-friendliness, healthfulness, deliciousness, ethics, or how to transition to veganism.<br> Although the sample was coded by a solitary coder, a colleague was enlisted to test my coding reliability across 10% of the sample. This resulted in the need to clarify some elements of the coding frame. The issues were primarily twofold. First, it was unclear if an article could be coded as <i>both</i> positive and negative; ultimately, I decided to pick only one primary code by determining the overall predominant tone. Several articles that would otherwise be positive start off with a negative statement as though there is a need to defend the forthcoming vegan product or recipe from vegan stereotypes; these would be coded as positive if the positive significantly outweighed the negative. If the article was not clearly leaning either way and might be considered balanced, it could be coded as neutral. Second, it was not always clear whether or not an article would be coded as positive if it centered product spotlights. Many such articles in the Cole and Stewart study were coded as neutral, but I opted to code as positive when there was a clearly positive spin to the product.