Social Media and the horse-meat scandal

Dr Mike Tse from The York Management School, with his co-researchers, Professor Bob Doherty and Dr Philip Garnett (both from The York Management School),  have been awarded a British Academy Small Grant to use social media to investigate consumer perceptions of food fraud during the scandal last year when ready meals were found to be adulterated with horsemeat.

The team will be using an archive of Tweets to examine how responses from the supermarket chains and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) influenced changes in public attitudes about the levels of risk involved and the quality of food products.

The results of the project will increase our knowledge about risk management and provide a powerful means to understand the social impact of food fraud.