Food risk communication: analysis of the media coverage of food risk on Italian online daily newspapers

The present study analysed the media coverage of food risk in the online editions of the four leading Italian daily newspapers in order to explore which topics were mainly covered and which aspects were preferably stressed. The media coverage was compared to data published on the RASFF Portal, in order to verify whether the selected sources worked promoting adequate information about food risks, or rather responding to news making criteria. Time series and content analysis were conducted on 2286 food risk news published between 2010 and 2014. The RASFF Portal returned 2697 alert notifications that were analyzed and compared with the media coverage results. Findings show that apart from media peaks the selected sources generally cover food risk without much variability. The great majority of RASFF data did not receive specific mention among the news articles analyzed, suggesting that the selected sources cover food safety issues responding more to a gate keeping bias. In relation to food incidents that generated major coverage, apart from the 2011 E. coli outbreak, the media were functioning conveying alarmist messages rather than informing and mitigating risks.