GI-metoden – bluff eller vägen till ett hälsosamt liv? : En studie om hur medier marknadsför hälsobegreppet Glykemiskt index

Sammanfattning: Abstract Title: The GI- method –bluff or the path to healthy life? Number of pages: 41 Tutor: Lowe Hedman Author: Annika Westlund Course: Media and Communication Studies C Period: Fall 2006 University: Division of Media and Communications Studies C Purpose/Aim: The aim of this essay was to investigate how the site GI viktkoll describes glycemic index on their website. The intention was also to investigate how the media presented GI through articles and how they used doctors and dieticians to appear trustworthy. Another aim was to investigate what effect GI viktkoll could have on its readers. Method/Material: I have chosen a qualitative method where I did a discourse analysis of the articles which were presented on the GI viktkolls website during a period of three weeks. This was my main method in the essay. I also did two interviews with educated professionals. The articles on the website were thereby the main material I used in the essay. Main results: My result shows that GI viktkoll do have an underlying aim in wanting to influence its readers ina specific way. Therefore my result shows that it is important as a reader, to be aware of that GI viktkoll might not present a critical way of thinking and every aspect of the phenomenon. GI viktkoll also has influence on people because they have power to change peoples mind about the phenomenon GImethod in the society. GI viktkoll only presents the healthy way of living through the GI method, although there still there is a lot of disagreement from other directions such as doctors and dieticians about the actual effects of the GI method on healthy people. Keywords: glycemic index, media culture, encoding/decoding, discourse analysis.