15

Analyzing Text

The Cultural Discourse in Ethnic Food Reviews

Elfriede Fürsich

Textual analysis has become one of the more popular methodologies for cultural critical media scholars. While the method is employed under various names, what all approaches have in common is that the method concentrates on qualitative interpretations of cultural output. For media scholars, the main data for a textual analysis is media content such as newspaper or magazine articles, television shows, radio programs, Internet sites, or computer games. Textual analysis draws on qualitative interpretive research traditions and critical theory.

This chapter demonstrates how to conduct a textual analysis. I employ textual analysis through a cultural-critical lens and illustrate this method with an analysis of food reviews. First, the method will be defined and introduced. Then I outline the methodological process of this qualitative method from the search for a topic, the establishment of a theoretical background, data selection, and the presentation of evidence to building a line of argument. Expanding on an exercise I used in the classroom, I analyze newspaper food reviews of ethnic restaurants. This analysis is embedded in three theoretical contexts: the role of media in creating national identity; the essentializing contradictions of authenticity and culture; and the problematic “us versus them” dichotomies of international journalism.

Defining Textual Analysis

With the cultural-critical turn in media studies more than 30 years ago, an increasing number of scholars rejected the social science paradigm of research along with quantitative methodology. Quantitative content analysis was criticized for remaining on a descriptive level and for evaluating language out of context. Instead, cultural-critical scholars tried to find a way of exploring content in its “natural” occurrence – words or images as they are expressed and received in a specific web of meaning. Drawing on a long line of qualitative research and interpretive approaches, textual analysis was often positioned in contrast to traditional content analysis, as it was seen as “a type of qualitative analysis that, beyond the manifest content of media, focuses on the underlying ideological and cultural assumptions of the text” (Fürsich, 2009, p. 240). These defining distinctions indicate the influence of the humanities, especially semiotics, film studies, and literary analysis, and of discursive interpretive approaches on the development of textual analysis.

In line with understanding media as “clues to the general culture” (Du Gay, Hall, Janes, Mackay, & Negus, 1997, p. 11), textual analysis has become a methodology that attempts to reconstruct the structures of feeling (Williams, 1974) – that is, the prevalent ideologies permeating a particular historical and cultural moment – that make a specific type of coverage possible. Researchers infer from specific media content how the people who produced the content and people who are addressed as audiences create shared meaning. The “underlying cultural and ideological assumptions” mentioned in the definition above are therefore the aspects in the text that can be analyzed to understand how ideology and common sense are constructed at any given time.

Textual analysis in the cultural-critical paradigm follows the principles of interpretive research (such as naturalistic inquiry). Textual analysts probe a research question inductively by finding patterns in the empirical material. These patterns lead to the interpretations and developments of explanations and theories grounded in the back and forth between observation and contextual interpretation. Textual scholars use open coding, not predefined codebooks, to organize, condense, and interpret their material: they decide on specific codes based on observation of patterns in the text.

Methodological Assumptions

Three epistemological and ontological concepts are essential for understanding textual analysis as a method.

Open Text, Multiple Readings

The “text” in textual analysis denotes a semiotic and cultural understanding of cultural output. Central here is Roland Barthes's understanding of text (1957/1972, 1977). Barthes positioned the rich, complex concept of text in contrast to the idea of a fixed oeuvre, which was traditionally considered the result of cultural production. In conventional literary studies, a critic's task was to find the “true” meaning in a picture, book, or other artistic production, to decipher what the author “really” meant. In contrast, Barthes, and, consequently, the movement of poststructuralism and deconstruction, radically interpreted or deconstructed texts as open artifacts whose meanings are constantly under negotiation because they can be interpreted in various ways: any cultural text is polysemic, that is, it potentially triggers multiple meanings. As Larsen (1991, p.122) in an early theoretical argument about the importance of text analysis summarized: “The text, then, should not be regarded as a closed, segmented object with determinate, composite meanings, but rather as an indeterminate field of meaning in which intentions and possible effects intersect.”

The production of meaning in media content is complex and can involve words, images, and sounds as signifiers. However, accepting the readers as the principal creators of meaning does not lead analysts to the relativistic conclusion that any text can be interpreted in an unlimited number of ways since everybody seems to “get something else out of it.” Instead, as cultural studies scholars argue, meaning is not created as an individual independent activity but audiences create meaning in a social process and rely on “shared maps of meaning” (Hall, 1997, p. 29). The social creation of meaning allows media producers and audiences to make sense of the world in a specific cultural and historic context but also always reflects given power relationships and ideologies. Therefore, meaning is never fixed but constantly contested.

Since popular texts are considered polysemic, it is not the goal of a textual analysis to uncover the one “true” or even “hidden” meaning of a text but to offer a variety of possible readings of the examined material. Instead of finding hidden meanings, “subconscious” intentions of the producers, or biases of the text, the task is to understand what cultural and ideological assumptions were established at a specific time that allowed a text to be considered acceptable and become popular, even common sense. For example, analyzing the internationally popular US sitcom Friends allows us to understand the dominant Western ideological conceptions of the late 1990s with regard to femininity and masculinity, the work ethic, and personal and professional success.

Thus, textual analysis interrogates content in its social and cultural context. What is of interest is the relation of media content to the overall dominant ideology. A textual analysis answers the question of how ideology is negotiated in the content: in what ways does the content maintain, reinforce, question, or even defy dominant ideology.

Reality as Constructed

Textual analysts also assume a particular relationship between reality and media. Traditional content analysis tries to understand how accurately the media portray reality. This method accepts the social scientific ontology of a world accessible through sense perception. Instead, qualitative scholars argue that media and society are interrelated and that various versions of reality are constructed (in the media and beyond the media). John Fiske's well-known statement explains this axiom. According to him, television is perceived as realistic, “not because it reproduces reality, which it clearly does not, but because it reproduces the dominant sense of reality” (1987, p. 21). Engaging in this ontological perspective, textual analysts accept the notion that what causes social action is not a pure, discernible reality but the idea of reality in people's heads. The ubiquitous media play a decisive role in establishing ideas of reality that are soon considered normal. The power of media lies in the creation of an accepted reality and common sense, but the media also have the ability to confront the status quo, as Schrøder (2002, p. 100) explained: “Media content [is] an artifact and process by which society is both reproduced and contested.” A central question for cultural critical scholars is the media's potential to challenge the common sense.

Representation as Constitutive of Media Discourse

When textual analysts interrogate certain depictions or portrayals in media content, they use the term “representation.” The aim of many textual analyses is to explain what types of representations are prevalent. The cultural studies scholars Stuart Hall and John Fiske played a central part in developing this concept for media studies. It would fall short to equate representation with portrayal or depiction in a text. When Hall explained that “representations are constitutive for a text,” he distinguished the concept from the social science idea that portrayals in the media are a more or less accurate reflection of reality. To account for the complicated relationship between reality and mediated reality, textual scholars analyze representation as complex practices of signification. This analysis involves, according to Hall (1997, p. 9), “actual signs, symbols, figures, images, narratives, words, and sounds – the material forms – in which symbolic meaning is circulated.” It is important for the textual critic to understand how current representations relate to earlier established representations. As Hall (1997) and others argued, representations are historically bound in a chain of signification. For example, it can be interesting to investigate if or how current news reporting on India relates to earlier stereotypical colonist representations established over centuries in literature, travel writing, or movies. Representations are considered central frameworks for making sense of the world.

Cultural productions are connected to various discourses, which are “a language or system of representation that has developed socially in order to make and circulate a coherent set of meanings about an important topic area” (Fiske, 1987, p. 11). Thus, by analyzing representations, textual critics elucidate ideological connotations that allow for a better understanding of accepted worldviews and their powerful impact.

Topic Selection

As a qualitative and interpretive methodology, textual analysis is well suited to answer questions that aim at understanding a prevalent ideology. Typical questions relate to an established media discourse and are phrased rather widely to allow for a variety of readings: How are women represented in the US television hit show How I Met Your Mother? What concepts of nation-state and civic belonging are negotiated in television news coverage on immigration? What idea of scientific work and scientific achievement is created in science programs for kids? What discourse on national identity is narrated on Egyptian blogs?

Questions that relate to the frequency of coverage, however, are best answered with standardized content analysis, for example: How many Latino characters are featured on prime-time television? Also, quantitative methodology can answer questions that investigate quantifiable trends in coverage, for example: How has the amount of coverage on female athletes changed over the last 30 years? When using quantitative content analysis, predefined typologies of characters need to be established in a codebook before the analysis, for example: What gender roles do female characters perform on current prime-time dramas (e.g., professional; mother; home-worker; victim; sex object). In contrast, textual analysis is suited to interrogate emerging role constellations; development of representations over time; and the connection of current representations to other current or previous discourses. For example: Are there moments of “Orientalism” in the current Western newspaper coverage on Iran? Are there differences in the representation of top female politicians compared to their male colleagues?

Cultural-critical scholars often focus on issues relating to class, race, ethnicity, and gender. Some of the connections between these issues and media content are more immediately obvious: “Orientalism” (Said, 1978) and coverage of the uprising in Egypt; the globalization discourse on CNN International; the representations of teenage girls and women in the Twilight saga; discourses of neoliberalism in the coverage of the 2008 economic crisis. It can be productive for cultural scholars to investigate discourses in various types of popular media, for example, Orientalism in the US movie Zero Dark Thirty; the discourse of globalization in world music reviews; the representation of technology and science in the US sitcom iCarly; the performance of status and class in home improvement shows; the notion of citizenship in the US show 24.

Exemplar: Representing the Other in Food Reviews

The example for this chapter followed the suggestions outlined above. It uses a general question of concern to cultural scholars and interrogates it in an unusual context that is often considered fringe or trivial. The theoretical context is the question of how Others (i.e., minorities, foreigners) are represented in the media. The empirical engagement is with so-called “ethnic” food reviews.

Justification

The intention of scholarly research is to contribute to the ongoing academic discussion on a specific topic. Thus, the justification of any study has to relate to earlier scholarship. The central question for this project was “How do the media make sense of other countries, and other people?” The way we represent the Other is of central concern in a globalizing world. Major political decisions are related to the way we see other nations and the world. Classic studies on journalism employed the news values “proximity,” “elite nation” (Galtung & Ruge, 1965), and “ethnocentrism” (Gans, 1979) to explain the fact that the closer another country is (economically, culturally, or politically) the more frequent and favorable the coverage will be. More (economically or militarily) powerful nations are more likely to dominate the news flows across the world, while people and events in counties at the periphery are often misconstrued or ignored. Only extreme humanitarian crisis, natural disasters, and violent conflicts with many casualties have a chance of being covered. Leaving the limitations of news journalism behind, it makes sense to look to international media content that is not necessarily deemed relevant to an informed citizenry – more trivial and popular content. The focus on popular content relates to another tenet of cultural-critical studies: meaning is created in all forms of popular culture and there is no banal entertainment that people only use to escape the mundane.

For example, many media consumers have an idea of “what Africa is about” even if they have never set foot on African soil. This idea of Africa is the backdrop when non-Africans hear the latest news about a food crisis in Ethiopia or political unrest in Mali. But these images in our heads have most likely developed over years of consumption of popular culture content relating to Africa through watching Hollywood movies such as Indiana Jones, Tintin, or Out of Africa, dancing to African music such as that of Youssou N'Dour, or enjoying animal documentaries on the Discovery Channel. Of course, personal encounters with people from the continent may play a role as do school lessons on Africa.

Another major site of cultural exchange is food. Visiting a so-called ethnic restaurant is a significant experience as it lets us encounter difference with all our senses. As media scholars, we can explore this unique cultural encounter by looking at the food reviews of ethnic restaurants. The task of food reviewers is to explain a different type of culture. Like travel journalists, food reviewers describe something “foreign” and “strange” to an audience that is normally not (yet) familiar with it.

Sampling

For textual analysis any well-established qualitative sampling methods can be used: maximum variation sampling, snowball sampling, theoretical construct sampling, critical case sampling, and even convenience sampling (for a detailed explanation see Lindlof, 1995, pp. 126–131). In any case, the sampling strategy needs to be made transparent to the reader and to be justified in relation to the research questions and theoretical concepts under investigation. For a scholarly project on ethnic food reviews, appropriate media content can be selected through qualitative sampling strategies. Following typical case sampling, for example, would mean to sample articles that capture “the typical (or normative) form of a phenomenon” (Lindlof & Taylor, 2011, p. 115.) Since in this case the phenomenon relates to food reviews on ethnic restaurants that are published in commonly accessible media, a search on Lexis/Nexis or various online news archives using a recent time frame will generate relevant articles. Sample size in qualitative research is typically considerably smaller than in quantitative research since the methodology calls for an intensive engagement with every source. The aim of typical case sampling is to generate pertinent exemplars for analysis.

One of the central tenets of qualitative research requires prolonged engagement with the participants or material under investigation, such as in a long-term participant observation in a field study. When dealing with media material it is equally important to engage in great detail with the material analyzed. Instead of just quickly focusing on the data to be analyzed, it is important to read, hear, or watch the material in context and to engage with the material in what Hall (1975, p. 15) called “the long preliminary soak.”

In the case of the food reviews, I had long been a fan of ethnic restaurants and was an avid reader of the Boston Globe during the time of the selection. I used my years of experience of reading the column as a starting point. While qualitative researchers work toward avoiding apparent and avoidable sources of bias, my familiarity with the media material can be justified as providing important contextual understanding beyond the articles selected for analysis (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Qualitative research understands the epistemological relationship between the researcher and the material to be studied as “interactive and inseparable” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 37). I used my fandom and knowledge of the articles as a first step to establish general expertise.

I have read many of these columns over the years and frequented many of the restaurants they describe. In order to gather materials for the actual analysis, I used a search on www.boston.com (a website of the Boston Globe) and searched for the column “cheap eats,” which I knew often covered ethnic restaurants. I deemed the decision to restrict the reviews to those of the Boston Globe acceptable since the journalistic style and routines of this daily newspaper are similar to those of other contemporary metropolitan newspapers in the United States. Moreover, the paper's continuing coverage of ethnic restaurants offers access to a wide variety of articles over a significant period of time. The example described below uses a purposefully selected sample of 50 reviews. I have used these articles frequently in a class exercise to teach students the problems of media representations of the Other.¹

Analytical Strategies: Coding and Binaries

The first step of the analysis entails a close examination of all the material including an intensive and repeated reading of all articles. The second step is to code the material. There are various established methods of coding in qualitative research and discourse analysis. What all these strategies have in common is that they aim at selecting and condensing the material under investigation in a multistep process. For example, in a first round of open coding, the text critic looks for central themes or frames in the coverage.

In this first round, it can also be helpful to investigate how the articles are constructed. Besides specific genre conventions, there often is a typical formula used to produce the text. For example, the articles in this study always relied on at least two anonymous visits to the restaurant during which the reviewer seemed to have taken some company along (as a way to be able to taste various menu items). After the tasting visit, there were phone interviews with the owner or cooks. A common journalistic formula further emerged in the text itself: Authors described in a few sentence the decor of the restaurants and the people frequenting it. They often positively acknowledged the presence of what they considered “ethnic” customers in the restaurant. Moreover, owners tended to be quoted on how they related to the food served, for example, whether they were from the featured country and whether they had learned cooking from someone in the home country. There were often comments on the speed, attitude, and friendliness of the service staff. The main part of the on average 1000 word reviews then dealt in some detail with specific dishes.

In the third step of analysis, these broader observations were further narrowed to specific textual elements. To reach deeper into the materials, some standard questions of cultural-critical textual analysis (see Barker, 2000; Vande Berg, Wenner, & Gronbeck, 1998) were adapted for the study: Are there patterns of binary oppositions in the text, such as “us” versus “them”? What in the text is considered normal, common sense, enjoyable? What verbal or visual metaphors are used? Whose voices are heard, and who is silenced? Who is established as ideal or preferred reader?

The overall research question for this project was: How do the reviewers create and produce national distinction and culture? It quickly became clear, however, that other stakeholders – the restaurant owners and workers – were also implicated in this discourse, leading me to ask further: How do restaurant owners and service staff produce national distinction? Upon close engagement with the text I found that the intrinsic goal of both parties (reviewers and restaurant owners/workers) in these reviews was to work on a discourse that emphasizes difference. This discourse was driven by the genre itself. What is the point of frequenting and reviewing an ethnic restaurant if it is not different from any “regular” bar at the corner?

As a next analytical level, I used a typical strategy of deconstruction by establishing discursive binaries in the text (see Fiske, 1984; McKee, 2003). These binaries are related to the topic and earlier scholarly research on representing the Other. Since the coverage is a type of international (even as it is local) reporting, the binary of “us” versus “them” is central. Cultural theory helped to establish “authentic” versus “inauthentic” as a further binary. I used these initial binaries to search for text passages that exemplify these distinctions. As a next step, I aligned other passages according to the us/them dichotomy. All that was considered part of the ethnic restaurant experience was listed to the left. To the right are the opposite side of the binaries that may or may not be explicitly mentioned in the text. Often, this side is the silenced and unquestioned common sense position.

Establishing these binaries throughout the texts augments the analysis in multiple ways. First, it allows the critic to further condense the material and filter out important textual elements. The binary starts with the binary “us” versus “them,” which is typical for reporting about Others. The elements that are mentioned in the left column of the binary list are those attributes of the reviews that are positively sanctioned, even if not all restaurants reach the established goal. Thus, the fact that a review criticizes a restaurant decoration for not being typically “Thai” or a cook who is not from the home country reinforces the established common sense position of an ethic restaurant “as it should be.”

In this binary list, it becomes discernible that the restaurants are pressed into a certain ideal that rewards a homey, cozy, and laid-back atmosphere, and business models where the standards of contemporary, commodified, organized business strategies don't apply. A long quote at the beginning of a review of a Middle Eastern restaurant exemplifies the basic binary structure:

Other textual examples further illustrate this point: The owners of the restaurant 9Tastes chose the name “because nine is a lucky number,” and not because of branding or marketing considerations (Subramaniam, 2003). Instead of professional and skilled training, the reviews emphasized family tradition and connection as, for example, in this description of Greek cooks noting that “Guiding their cooking was a mix of their mother's recipes and those of a 80-year-old Greek cook who trained them” (Taylor, 2002). Another review similarly described a Thai couple who

The idea of noncommodified relations extends to the clientele who is not supposed to be treated as paying customers but as guests and friends: “When [the meze] came, we felt like revered guests in a Turkish home (only with plastic forks)” (Taylor, 2006). Another Greek restaurant is

This statement also taps into another typical nostalgic discourse that favors “many years ago” and “small towns.” A Mexican restaurant “is where transplants from Mexico come to get their fix. This colorful family-style restaurant, called a fonda in Mexico, is where you'll find such delicacies as cuitlacoche” (“Most authentic restaurants,” 2005).

Second, another important aspect of a binary list is that it allows the critic to evaluate what is left out in the text, what the unquestioned or unmentioned default position is. Note that various attributes of “them” are verbalized in the reviews, while the “us” remains silenced. These unspoken elements (noted in parentheses in Table 15.1) are the assumed position of the “us”: It is in this right-hand column that the accepted common sense position becomes visible. These elements cannot necessarily be illustrated with verbatim “manifest” statements in the media content. But by filling in the missing binary, the critic is able to explain the cultural assumptions of the common sense and dominant position.

Table 15.1 Textual binaries in ethnic food reviews

“Them”	“Us”
Restaurant owner and family, staff	Reviewer, readers
Authentic	(Inauthentic)
Typical, essential, genuine	(Indistinguishable, hybrid)
Based on national distinction
Family, community	(Individualized, alienated)
Ethnic guests as friendly community
Friendly staff who makes guests feel at home
History/roots	(Future orientation, without roots)
Recipes, food based on long traditions
Static	Flexible
Slow	(Fast)
Service, food
Cozy, warm	Hectic, cold
Inside the restaurant	Street (life) outside the restaurant
Self-organized, family-run	(Organized, bureaucratic, corporate)
Cooks and owners not trained professionals but skilled through family connections
Noncommercialized relations	(Commodification)
Customers as guests, friends

Establishing a Theoretical Context

To further delve into the common sense position of the text, the next step is to contextualize the text in relationship to other scholarly concepts. After condensing and systematizing the material through several levels of coding, it is important to connect the data under investigation to the earlier established research questions and tie the material to appropriate theoretical frameworks. The goal of qualitative research is “to make contextually grounded, theoretical points that are viewed as a contribution by the relevant professional community of readers” (Golden-Biddle & Locke, 1997, p. xv). Following the principles of grounded theory, the critic moves from the data to theoretical explanations that are constantly re-evaluated in a continued engagement with the media content. A textual analysis ultimately has to present one or multiple readings or interpretations that explain the cultural and ideological assumptions at the core of the text.

Media and National Identity

The analysis of the text examined here revealed several strategies used to establish a restaurant as “genuine” or “authentic.” This “authenticity check” was conducted throughout the materials. Words such as “ethnic,” “authentic,” “traditional,” “exotic,” and “genuine” were all used to designate a cultural distinction and categorization and to establish the ethnic/national credentials of the different restaurants.

In the opening paragraphs, reviewers typically established a clear cultural categorization by highlighting the decor. As a reviewer commented lightheartedly: “Themis manages the storefront restaurant, which counters its environs with bright wood panels and sunny murals of Greece (must Greek restaurants so cruelly flaunt their homeland's azure waters and sun-bleached patios?)” (Taylor, 2002). On the other hand, it was deemed a problem if “while you nibble Japanese and Korean specialties, putti, the little Italian angels, smile down from the canvases on the ceiling” (Julian, 1998).

Reviewers further authenticated the restaurant by educating their readers on unusual food while simultaneously establishing their own authority. As one review put it, “in a Korean restaurant, one authenticity test is the panchan, or little side dishes that come with the meal” (“Most authentic restaurants,” 2005).

Another striking similarity across all reviews by various authors is the fact that they often described the owner and the owner's family or other staff – especially the chef – and the details of the restaurant's founding or the cooking expertise. These descriptions were another “authenticity check.” For examples, a review of a Thai restaurant opened with the detailed names of the owners signifying exotic complexity:

Similar qualifications related to the restaurants' customers. The ethnic makeup of their clientele was carefully noted – “I was pleased to note that we were the only non-Asian clientele on our first visit, taking it as evidence that this Vietnamese is serving the genuine article and not just catering to the South Lawrence tourist trade” (MacDonald, 1998) – with the presence of American costumers viewed with suspicion. The staff was marked for their difference as well: “The staff at Viet Cafe has an engagingly tentative air, sweet but seemingly fearful of being spoken to roughly. You feel you ought to keep your voice low as not to startle them, quite unlike the brash Boston wait staffs” (Arnett, 2000).

Of note is the fact that the descriptions of exoticism and authenticity were done from the perspective of an unquestioned default. The reviewers brought in a specific understanding of what a Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Turkish restaurant has to look like. Mainly this default was based on the experience with other restaurants of the same category, not actual visits to that country. Often, reviewers established a contrast between the exterior (the cold or hectic city of Boston) and interior of the restaurant (warm and/or calm):

In another review “the orange walls inside Bhindi Bazar seemed to radiate warmth, just what we needed after braving the blustery cold” (Subramaniam, 2002b). There was an even more nostalgic tone in this review:

When reading the reviews, it becomes clear that reviewers and owners engaged in different cultural strategies for establishing authenticity and national difference. For the reviewers, it was important to establish the dissimilarity of these restaurants following the standards of the genre of ethnic food reviews. Difference became a mark of quality. Restaurants that played too obviously to local US tastes were seen as a problem: “The menu is slightly upscaled [sic], too, and recognizes that the dining public can embrace ethnic cuisine on its own merits with no Americanization” (Arnett, 1998b). Another reviewer commented: “I liked the fact that when one asked for spicy here, the dish was prepared that way, no toning down just because the diner's not Korean” (Arnett, 1998c).

Restaurants were defined and categorized along national distinctions that relied on clear, often static, and essentialized cultural definitions. These distinctions inscribed accepted center–periphery power relationships. Indeed, what makes a restaurant an ethnic restaurant? The term “ethnic” often stands in for “Third World” or periphery – a French restaurant would not be called an ethnic restaurant. Interestingly enough, in this particular case, Turkish and Greek restaurants (as countries at the periphery of Europe), and even Japanese restaurants, were also included in this category.

Yet it would be naive to regard this categorization as a one-way process. Instead, the statements of owners demonstrate that they too engage in the performance of authenticity by striving to create an “authentic” national identity to be sold to customers. As an owner quoted in one of the reviews put it, “We are not competing with the kebabs made at other restaurants made in town . . . We are competing with the kebabs made in Turkey. We want to be as good as in Turkey or better” (Taylor, 2006).

The restaurant owners negotiated a position that allowed for enough national difference – as a marketable brand distinction – while always making the effort to guide potential clients through familiar categories into new territory, for example, by describing a dish on the menu as “Vietnamese pancake” or naming a restaurant “Beijing.” Possibly negative political meanings were excluded or sanitized, for example, by calling a cuisine “Persian” instead of “Iranian.” National identity had to be established as different enough to be considered special in a crowded restaurant market, yet still able to connect to US expectations so as to not drive away customers not ready for an experience that was too “exotic.” One reviewer spelled out this ambivalent strategy in detail. She praised a Cambodian chef: “Her flavors are distinctive, and there's no Americanization of the food. Yet the cuisine is easy to understand: there's no feeling that you'll never know what you're eating or never get the stuff saved for insiders” (Arnett, 1998a). For the restaurant owners, national identity became a branding strategy that positioned a unique dining experience as a competitive advantage.

Both sides engaged in a discourse of authentication and distinction. In this process national identity was negotiated (by the reviewer) and performed (by the owner and staff). This performance was grounded in a discourse of national identity or the “idea that people and things from and within national borders possess very particular, idiosyncratic, national characteristics” (Du Gay et al., 1997, p. 48). As a cultural strategy to make sense of one's own identity and that of others, it may seem harmless enough, but here is where the cultural-critical commitment to interrogating power relations is important. These food reviews are but one example of how media negotiate and represent the nation-state.

Thus, it is helpful to draw here on scholarship on the relationship between media and the nation-state that has emphasized that both are intrinsically intertwined (e.g., Waisbord, 2004). First newspapers (Anderson, 1991), and later news magazines and national television news (Gans, 1979), have played a distinctive role in defining, explaining, and representing the nation-state for audiences. Anderson's idea of the nation -state as an “imagined community” explains the centrality of representations for the existence of the nation-state system (1991, pp. 6–7):

In this study, the reviewers often presented a geopolitically fixed situation defined by national borders. The current political status quo was reinforced along with traditional political center–periphery thinking.

The Concept of Culture: Static versus Dynamic

These restaurants were scarcely given a chance for creative development. Attempts to present hybrid food and new preparations were rarely acknowledged and mainly criticized. For example, an Indian restaurant was condemned for a new type of bread filling: “Chicken and pesto? What is going on here? The Kebab Factory has woven some unlikely combinations into its repertoire of traditional Indian fare. But they haven't neglected the classics” (Julian, 2001a). Faced with a large choice of seemingly out-of-place dishes, the reviewer ended the article almost philosophically:

The restaurant remained authentic only because it held onto a traditional menu. In an earlier review, a new Asian restaurant was advised that “sticking to the Korean basics would seem to be a good first plan” (Arnett, 1998c).

As in a museum, these cuisines were frozen in time – national culinary distinctiveness was framed within contemporary (often short-term) political borders. This discursive strategy neglected, especially, food preparations developed in regional or local spaces or through centuries of cross-border influences, such as along the spice road. Food was not understood as an active and transitory cultural expression but was preserved as an essentialized category. Moments of hybridity and new development were often negatively sanctioned, as they would call for an understanding of culture as a dynamic, continuously changing process. However, it should be noted that the reviews used here (from the late 1990s to 2006) reflect a certain stage in restaurant development in Boston. The later the reviews were issued, the more likely reviewers engaged positively with hybrid forms of cooking, which became more fashionable.

Othering: Us versus Them

A further step in connecting the material to other theoretical explanations is to continue to engage in the binary setup. A central motivation of the study was to see if seemingly trivial journalism could be used to understand the media's approach to representing the Other. The question now is how exactly the texts create an idea of an Other. By continuing the binary setup along the dimensions of the Other and filling in the mostly unspoken counterparts for the United States, the preferred reader and underlying cultural preferences become visible. As is typical in media representations of Others, the media text often reveals more about the unspoken ideological assumptions of the “we” than the lived reality of the Other.

In the case of the food reviews, the articles depended on a clear demarcation against an ethnic and exotic Other who tended to be a first-generation immigrant from so-called Third World or periphery countries. It speaks for the text that despite the limited length of the articles, owners are often quoted verbatim and not – as is a typical problem for international reporting – silenced or replaced by expert voices from Western elites. But as the fixed voices in the formulaic reviews, the restaurant owners were, nevertheless, “put in place.” Beyond national difference, ethnic difference was established, too. For example, in one case, even African Americans belonged to the Other. The default “us” is White:

Table 15.2 Extension of binaries

Other	We
Ethnic/often non-White/periphery/first-generation, immigrant	(US American, nonethnic, probably White, no direct migration background)
Spoken about	Spoken to = Preferred reader

The preferred reader established in these articles is US American, nonethnicized, probably White, without a direct migration background. This dichotomy continues to enforce, or at least does not challenge, a national identity that minimizes the US historic experience of continuous immigration and mobility. US identity is endowed on a population that is a static, egalitarian, nonracial assembly while migrants and minorities are Others with regard to race/ethnicity and class.

Further Interpretations

As a last step of the analysis, the researcher has to take the discursive strategies that were established earlier and the elements that were tied to a wider theoretical framework through to another round of interpretations. The goal is to establish various comprehensive readings of the text. These interpretations should probe the question as to why the examined texts “work” at the given time. How do the articles relate to established ideologies and structures of feeling?

In this case, the binary structure again helps to approach another dimension of interpretation. If one reads along the two columns, one is struck by how the attributes of the two sides position “them” in a reality that is sensual, emotional, dependent on kinship relations, and driven by noncommodified attitudes. This world provides a welcome and appreciated escape for “us” – the reviewers and the preferred readers – who are nonethnicized Americans. “We” seem to be living in a “cold” world of structure, commodity production, and Fordist principles. Despite the fact that the reviewers exoticize the Other in positive terms and engage in an accepting, tolerant framing, this binary leaves rationality on the side of the reviewer. The world of the ethnic restaurants is in the realm of the emotional and irrational. Visiting the restaurants is a sensual encounter that does not necessitate cerebral engagement. A reviewer writes about a Cambodian restaurant: “The herbal scents of lemongrass; the bite of chilies; smoky, sultry accents; a hint of sour and then sweet – all these tastes and smells converge, beguiling the senses. Falling in love was never easier” (Arnett, 1998a).

This dichotomy is amplified by the discursive strategy that positions ethnic food and owners in the past. To make this point, a reviewer starts her review of a Palestinian restaurant with a daring historic account:

Her quasi-scientific account of “humans [who] have been eating food this way since they first started cooking” connects not only the restaurant but also a whole region to premodern times. This quote is indicative of the overall discourse. Most of these articles echoed a cultural sensibility that positions the premodern Other against a modern “us.” Moreover, this premodern state was connected to irrationality and positioned against modern rationality. As Table 15.3 demonstrates, sensual and emotional language was typically used to describe the food, the decor or the cooks' genealogies. Restaurants were considered successful if they employed methods that are counter to the rational, organizational model of advanced capitalism. The reviewers followed the genre conventions by using clear judgmental language and a didactic approach toward the reader. This journalistic style reflects the enlightenment spirit of modernity. The possibility of hybridity – as a postmodern sensibility – is left out or regarded negatively in these articles.

Table 15.3 Cultural sensibility and ideology of food reviews

Not rational	Rational
Attitudes of cooks towards food	Professional attitudes of judgment
Descriptions of food and decor in emotional, sensual terms	Didactic voice of reviewers
Cultural sensibility/ideology	(Cerebral, rational)
Sensual, irrational	Modern
Premodern	Now
Then

There are several possible interpretations of this discourse. One can understand this text and its sustained desire for authenticity as a type of symbolic and cultural resistance to a world where traditionally firm categories such as nation and national culture have become fluid. This idea links to the anthropological insight that food production and consumption have always been used to create a sense of identity and to maintain boundaries. In this study, these reviews negotiate new boundaries in a specific geopolitical moment characterized by commodification and globalization. However, the tendency to frame this exchange in a premodern/modern dichotomy falls prey to a problem explained by anthropologist Fabian (1983). The reviews represent the Other in an earlier time, running the risk of depicting contemporaries as primitive ancestors caught in static, temporal displacement. The ideology of the food reviews dehumanizes Others by using them in a nostalgic enactment that reinforces outdated power relationships.

Yet another cultural interpretation or reading could explain the commodification and branding of national identity and the performance of ethnic difference that the reviewers and restaurant owners engage in as an ironic and self-aware commentary to make sense of a world in flux. The discourse surrounding the ethnic restaurants becomes a site where civic and cultural identities are negotiated. After all, these reviews have been written at a time when globalization has become an experienced cultural and economic reality even in the powerful centers in the West – and not something that only happens to Others.

There is a need for new research to carefully position such analyzed texts in their historic and geopolitical context. Further studies could analyze ethnic reviews in a wider set of media and over a longer period of time. This strategy would enable textual analysts to understand shifting ideologies over time regarding globalization, the demise of the nation-state, and cultural identity. At any rate, the textual analysis of selected food reviews presented here demonstrates how popular journalism negotiates cultural sensibilities and ideologies about how we see the world. This type of method took the analysis of media coverage, that is, various themes of the coverage or specific frames in these articles, only as a staring point. The central contribution of textual analysis is its interpretation beyond the manifest content. Its aim is to explicate the prevailing ideologies and power relations that allowed this content to be produced in the first place.

NOTE

1 While the reviews here analyzed were downloaded over many years, starting in 1998, similar recent reviews can be accessed at http://www.boston.com/ae/restaurants/2012/06/14/YKDzsi0HansLF45C2MryiJ/pictures.html?s_campaign=cse (accessed August 10, 2013).

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