Food contamination incidents discussion please read the attached article and write one paper of “Literature Critique” also i’m attaching the instructions

Food contamination incidents discussion please read the attached article and write one paper of “Literature Critique”

also i’m attaching the instructions and a sample of the literature critique. Please read! International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark. 21: pp 227–241 (2016)
Published online 21 June 2016 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nvsm.1555
Food contamination incidents: what do
consumers seek online? Who cares?
Bo Liang1* and Debra L. Scammon2
1
Saint Vincent College, USA
University of Utah, USA
2
•
Consumers can play an active role in managing their health during food contamination incidents. With
the popularity of the internet, consumers may seek online information to minimize health risks associated
with the incidents. This study examines information demand and supply for consumers’ onlineinformation seeking by investigating the search queries commonly used by consumers during the incidents and returned first page search results. We use a stage of change model to frame our hypotheses about
information demand and stakeholder and agenda setting theories to frame our hypotheses about information supply. Results show that consumers’ information seeking may progress through stages of
precontemplation (seeking no special information), contemplation (seeking information related to the
facts of the incidents), preparation and action (seeking information related to safety precautions and
practices), and maintenance and termination (seeking no special information). Mainstream news media
play the most important role in providing online information related to the facts of the incidents during
the contemplation stage of consumers’ information seeking. Online citizen journalism is the major online
source for information related to safety precautions and practices during the preparation and action stage
of information seeking. A diversity of other stakeholders also provide online information related to the
incidents but are not primary information sources for consumers. We suggest that stakeholders, especially
those who are responsible for providing accurate and timely information to consumers such as government agencies, establish online marketing strategies to make their information more accessible by consumers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Keywords: food contamination, Google search, transtheoretical model of behavior change, agenda setting
theory, social media
Introduction
In the USA, foodborne diseases have been estimated
to cause 6 million to 81 million illnesses and up to
*Correspondence to: Bo Liang, Saint Vincent College, 300 Fraser
Purchase Road, Latrobe, PA 15650, USA
E-mail: bo.liang@stvincent.edu
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
9000 deaths each year (Todd, 1989; Foegeding
et al., 1994). Because of the prevalence and severity
of foodborne diseases, to minimize health risk associated with food contamination incidents, it is important for consumers to be aware of and take
adequate self-protective actions, including seeking
information.
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2016
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
228
Online information seeking has attracted growing attention from researchers in recent years. Extant research in this emerging field has followed
two lines: (1) information demand and (2) information supply. Research on information demand has
focused on search query formulation strategies
and the correlation of search volume patterns and
public behavior (Jansen, Spink, Bateman, &
Saracevic, 1998; Lucas & Topi, 2002). For instance,
researchers in medical informatics have found a
high correlation of the occurrence of certain
search queries and the incidence of certain diseases (Eysenbach, 2006, 2009). Research on information supply has focused on click-through rates
of pages in search results and their effects on the
popularity of information sources (Jansen et al.,
1998; Pan et al., 2004; Law, Mintzes & Morgan,
2011). Research has found that people are most
likely to click through to webpages at high ranking
positions in search results (Spink et al., 2001), and
thus, webpage ranking can be used to judge the
popularity of information sources.
This study contributes to the literature by providing theoretical insights and empirical evidence for
consumer information seeking on food contamination incidents over time. Specifically, this study
answers the following questions on information
demand and information supply during a food contamination incident.
Information demand:
Bo Liang and Debra L. Scammon
Information demand: consumer
information search related to food
contamination incidents
The transtheoretical model of behavior change proposed by DiClemente and Prochaska (1982) characterizes health behaviors as moving through six
stages of change, including precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, actions, maintenance, and
termination. A large volume of research has shown
that consumers prefer stage-matched health information rather than generic information for facilitating positive health behaviors (Prochaska et al.,
2001; Johnson et al., 2006).
We propose that consumers seek stage-matched
information in response to food contamination incidents (Figure 1). Before any food contamination
incidents occur, consumers are in the stage of
precontemplation (pre-events) in which they are
unaware of any problems with their food supply,
and thus may only pay incidental attention to general information about food issues. We consider
search volumes without the influence of any incidents as the baseline search volumes. Therefore,
our first hypothesis is:
H1: The search volume for queries relevant to a
specific food contamination incident will be at
(1) What information do consumers search for
about an incident?
(2) When do consumers start searching for information about an incident?
(3) When do consumers stop searching for information about an incident?
Information supply:
(4) Which online information sources influence consumers the most by taking high ranking positions in
search results during an incident?
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Figure 1. A flow chart of consumers seeking stage-matched
information.
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2016
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
Consumer online search
a low level (baseline level) prior to the announcement of the incident.
However, once a particular food contamination
incident occurs, consumers progress into the stage
of contemplation in which they begin to realize that
their food may be contaminated, and thus could
cause some health problems. In this stage, consumers may pay attention to information about the
facts of the incidents such as the source of the contamination and the symptoms of infection. Then,
consumers may progress into the preparation and
action stages in which they intend to take actions
to protect themselves from the contamination, and
thus pay attention to information about safety precautions and practices such as thoroughly cooking
food. Therefore, our second hypothesis is:
H2: The search volume for queries about the
facts and safety precautions and practices relevant to a specific food contamination incident
will rise to a high level during the first few
weeks after the announcement of the incident
with queries about the facts (contemplation)
increasing first, followed by queries about safety
precautions and practices (preparation and
action).
As consumers learn more about the current incident, their need for information about the facts of
the incident and food safety practices will decline.
The facts of a specific food contamination incident
include both the facts about the incident itself
(e.g., the time the incident occurred) and the facts
about the pathogen (e.g., A Salmonella). Because
consumers may have a harder time understanding
scientific facts than the details about specific incidents (e.g., time and location), they may spend
more time searching for the facts about the pathogen than the facts about the incident itself.
As the action stage involves “the most overt behavioral changes and requires considerable commitment of time and energy” (Prochaska & Norcross,
2001), we argue that consumers will pay attention
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
229
to the information they need in the preparation
and action stage for a longer time than the information they need in the contemplation stage. Thus,
our third hypothesis is:
H3: The search volume for search queries will
decline at different rates: First, search queries
about the facts of the incident itself will decline
most quickly; second, the facts of the pathogen
will decline more slowly; and third, the information about safety precautions and practices will
decline the most slowly.
Finally, in the maintenance and termination stage
(post-events), consumers will no longer feel a need
for information about the current food safety issue,
but may still keep alert to it for a while, and finally
resume their normal life. At this stage, consumers
may only encounter information about past incidents by chance. Thus, our fourth hypothesis is:
H4: The search volume for search queries relevant to a specific food contamination incident
will decrease to the lowest level after a few
weeks, following the announcement of the
incident.
Agenda setting theory proposes that the news media have an important influence on what issues the
public considers to be important. The issues that are
covered by the news media are likely to become the
issues that the public cares about and considers as important (McCombs, 2004). Thus, mainstream news
media are likely to play a leading role in shaping the
public agenda of food contamination issues. In general, mainstream news media consider negative
events as more newsworthy than positive events
(Dunwoody & Griffin, 2002). Because the facts of a
food contamination incident relate to what was performed wrong, whereas the safety precautions and
practices relate to what can be performed right, we
consider the former more negative and thus more
newsworthy, and the latter more positive and thus
less newsworthy. This suggests that mainstream news
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2016
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
230
Bo Liang and Debra L. Scammon
media will pay more attention to the facts of the incident. As a result, more consumers will care about the
facts of the incident and neglect information about
the safety practices. Thus, our fifth hypothesis is:
H5: The total search volume for search queries
about the facts of food contamination incidents
will be much greater than that of search queries
about food safety practices.
Information supply: stakeholder
information provision during food
contamination incidents
From a stakeholder point of view, we consider consumers as the focal group, and those organizations,
groups, or individuals that may be involved in specific food contamination incidents as stakeholders.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC, CDC) (2011a, CDC), Salmonella
and Escherichia coli bacteria can be transmitted
through the three stages of the food chain: food production and processing, distribution, and consumption. We present a set of stakeholders involved in
every stage in Figure 2.
As noted in the introduction section, webpage ranking is one important marker of the popularity of an information source, and thus stakeholder influence.
Stakeholders can become salient by providing information that matches search queries used by consumers during food contamination incidents. Each
stakeholder group may have different interests in connection with consumers, and thus provide information to consumers relevant to different search queries.
Mainstream news media send the earliest and
most “official” information concerning a specific
food contamination incident with a focus on the
facts of the incident. Thus, mainstream news media
are most likely to obtain higher-ranking positions in
search results for relevant search queries at an early
stage of the incident. Our sixth hypothesis is:
H6: Mainstream news media will take the most
positions on the first page of search results for
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Figure 2. A flow chart of Salmonella/Escherichia coli transmission and potential stakeholders.
search queries about the facts of a specific food
contamination incident during the first few
weeks following the announcement of the
incident.
As the food contamination incident progresses,
mainstream news media will shift their attention
to other newsworthy events, and thus reduce the
number of reports on the incident. When mainstream news media are no longer the dominant
source for information about the incident, a diverse set of stakeholders may share the highranked positions in the search results. Social media
and online news and information media are two
major online forms of citizen journalism. Food contamination incidents threaten consumers’ health
and even life. Citizen journalism is responsive to
this consumer perspective. Thus, following mainstream news media, social media, and online news
and information media will become the major online source of information about the facts of the
incident.
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2016
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
Consumer online search
A similar logic describes the pre-incident stage.
Before any food contamination incidents occur,
mainstream news media will not pay special attention to, and thus provide little information about
food contamination issues. As a result, a diverse set
of stakeholders, especially social media and online
news and information media, which are the media
most sensitive to consumers’ interests, will provide
online information for consumers. Thus, our seventh hypothesis is:
H7: A diverse set of stakeholders will share positions with social media and online news and information media generally taking the most
positions on the first page of search results for
search queries about the facts of a specific food
contamination incident before the incident occurs and during the last few weeks following
the announcement of the incident.
As we noted, safety precautions and practices
may be less newsworthy, and thus may not be the
foci of mainstream news media. However, as they
are the most important actions that consumers can
take to protect themselves from unsafe food, safety
precautions and practices will be the foci of citizen
journalism. We predict that social media and online
news and information media will be the major
sources of information about safety precautions
and practices. Our eighth hypothesis is:
H8: Through the whole cycle of a specific food
contamination incident (before, during, and after the incident), social media and online news
and information media will take the most positions on the first page of search results for
search queries about the safety precautions
and practices relevant to the incident.
With regard to stages of behavior change, consumers will primarily be influenced by mainstream
news media when they seek information about the
facts of the incident—the stage of contemplation;
consumers will primarily be influenced by social
media and online news and information media
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
231
(online citizen journalism) when they seek information about safety precautions and practices—the
stage of preparation and action; at the other two
stages (stages of precontemplation and maintenance
and termination), consumers will be influenced by a
diversity of stakeholders, especially social media and
online news and information media.
Methodology
We conducted a multiple case study of national outbreaks of foodborne infection in the USA between
2006 and 2010. In this section, we present data collection methods, identification of search queries,
and selection of case objects.
Data collection
Google is the most dominant search engine, serving
the largest percentage of queries—65% (comScore,
2011). This indicates that data from Google can reflect the major consumer search trends. In addition,
Google provides some free tools useful for search
data analysis. Thus, we selected Google as our major
data source. For each case, we collected two sets of
data from Google: (1) search volume for specific
search queries and (2) returned search-ranking results for these queries.
Search query data
Following methods used in previous studies, in this
study, we use Google Insights for Search (GIFS) to
identify the changing patterns of search queries
used by aggregate consumers related to food contamination incidents. GIFS provides two types of
search volume data: single-entry volume data and
multiple-entry volume data. The single-entry volume
data are generated by entering one query at a time.
GIFS generates a single-line graph in which the
weekly or monthly search volume numbers for this
query are displayed. The search volume data in this
graph are normalized on a scale from 0 to 100 and
represents search volume numbers relative to the
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2016
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
232
total number of searches carried out for this query
on Google over the relevant time range. We used
this type of data to test the hypotheses about search
volume of single search queries (H1–H4).
The multiple-entry volume data are generated by
entering multiple search queries at one time using
the “add terms” function. GIFS generates a multipleline graph in which each line represents the search
volume for each query, and the weekly or monthly
search volume numbers for each query are displayed
on each line. The search volume data in this graph
are normalized on a scale from 0 to 100 and represent
search volume numbers of one search query relative
to search volume numbers of other search queries
on Google over a time period. We used this type of
data to test the hypothesis about the comparison
of the total search volumes for multiple search
queries (H5).1
Using the graphs generated by GIFS, we observed
the search volume trends for selected search
queries. We also conducted qualitative analysis using
the same data in downloadable comma-separated
values files.
Search result data
We propose that different stakeholders uniquely
provide information relevant to specific search
queries in a timely manner during a food contamination incident. The relevance of different types of information to various stages of change in consumer
behavior leads to temporal changes in search ranking results. Google search engine provides a filter
tool called “custom range” on the left side of search
result pages that helps narrow down the search results by specifying a time range during which
webpages are indexed by Google. Using this tool,
we downloaded the first-page search result items
(10 items on one page) within specific time intervals. To maintain consistency, we set up the time intervals for search result data to be the same as that
used for search volume data provided by GIFS.
1
For both types of data, when Google does not have enough
data, zero is shown.
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bo Liang and Debra L. Scammon
Based on the analysis of stakeholders involved in
food contamination incidents, we coded the sources
of search result information into nine categories: (1)
government, (2) industry, (3) mainstream media, (4)
social media, (5) online news and information media, (6) health care, (7) consumer advocacy, (8)
research and academia, and (9) law/insurance service (Table 1).
Identification of search queries from an exemplar
foodborne outbreak
A multistate outbreak of Salmonella infection associated with shell eggs occurred from August to
November of 2010, leading to approximately 1939
illnesses (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, CDC, 2011a, CDC). We conducted a brief
preliminary study of this food contamination incident to identify the search queries that match the
stages of behavior change.
Research has shown that internet users usually include one or two terms in one search query (Jansen,
Spink, Bateman & Saracevic…
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