The political ecology of MasterChef Australia: negotiating sustainability in food television production

The sustainability of food production, distribution and consumption is becoming increasingly pressing in everyday life. While the representation of environmental issues has been the main focus of debates in media studies, this thesis investigates how practices of television production shape discourses of ethical consumption, animal welfare, and food waste. As one of the most popular programs about food with substantial influence on purchasing habits, MasterChef Australia occupies a powerful place in the Australian food media landscape. Based on qualitative interviews with producers, this study specifically addresses the dimensions in which they negotiate issues of food politics in their daily work. This thesis combines Actor-Network Theory with pragmatic sociology of critique to understand the food values of media professionals. Results reveal that the Coles supermarket chain was a crucial component of the production, which determined many aspects of the program’s environmental politics. The program may be reformed in the direction of sustainability, so long as this conforms with the needs of program sponsors. The inclusion and exclusion of particular ingredients, animal cruelty, and accessibility were key areas where informants were sensitive to food politics. The management of surplus food in the production, which would otherwise be wasted and therefore exacerbate issues of food security in Australia, is demonstrated to be a domain where producers’ may be harnessed to concerns of sustainability. At present food waste, a crucial issue for sustainability more generally, was negotiated through the recruitment of specific actors rather than challenging the premises of the program’s design. The production’s response to food politics is generally one of silently shifting suppliers: operating largely through market signals rather than explicitly criticizing other modes of production. It is here that the program’s “aspirational” aesthetic provides a kind of political anesthetic, numbing the production a more explicit engagement with issues of food politics