Consumer Perceptions towards Dairy Products: Effects of Mass Media

Abstract

Using the information from mass media, consumers develop their perceptions towards dairy products. This article examines how these perceptions are developed. Based on a mixed design, our research has three consecutive data collection phases. The first phase is a quantitative content analysis of four major Turkish newspapers, three popular Turkish television health shows and Turkish internet content on dairy products. Second phase is designed to collect qualitative data from three focus groups in order to reveal what kinds of perceptions are developed about milk, cheese and yogurt and how the consumers verbally express them. Findings from these two phases are used to develop a questionnaire, which is applied to a sample of 733 urban consumers, for the quantitative measurement of these perceptions. Findings reveal that mass media disseminates huge amount of information to which consumers are exposed. Consumers admit that their decisions were usually affected by such information. Survey results showed that dairy consumers tend to trust more in the positive claims than the negative ones. Consumers mostly develop perceptions regardless of their socio-demographic differences due to the mainstreaming effect of mass media. However, a cluster analysis showed that younger, more educated, wealthier and regular diary consumers have lower levels of negative perceptions about milk, cheese and yogurt. On the other hand, consumers with more trust in media and readiness to share media information have higher levels of positive perceptions about milk and yogurt.

Beverage milk consumption patterns in the United States: Who is substituting from dairy to plant-based beverages?

“…Instead, prior research has either evaluated market segments of fluid milk (Harwood and Drake, 2018) or considered the motivations that might influence consumers to choose plantbased alternatives (McCarthy et al, 2017). Some studies that have compared perceptions of nutrition content in dairy milk and milk alternatives in other countries, such as Australia (Bus and Worsley, 2003a,b), Canada (Préjet, 2018), and Turkey (Atabek and Atabek, 2019), suggest that significant confusion exists in consumer perceptions. In the United States, studies have focused on milk production attributes (Wolf et al, 2011) and consumer segmentation within dairy milk (Bir et al, 2019), finding that consumers are willing to pay significant amounts for aspects including fat content.…”

Assessment of Brazilian consumers' perception about the presence of stabilisers in UHT milk: A study using virtual focus groups

“…Several studies have been conducted on the perception of the general presence of additives in food and dairy products (Shim et al . 2011; Atabek and Atabek 2019; van der Vossen‐Wijmenga et al . 2022).…”

Countering dairy misinformation with science communication: effectively communicating dairy product benefits to non-scientific publics

“…Barker et al 2014) reported a significant increase in nutrition and slimmingrelated content through constant exposure to magazines. Yadavalli & Jones (2014), as cited in Atabek & Atabek (2019), demonstrated how media coverage concerning food scare incidents could significantly impact consumer behaviour. Hence, there must be increased media awareness about dairy products' benefits and written in formats and languages that the non-scientific publics will understand.…”

“…Hence, Besley et al (2018) call for scientists to inform and communicate with non-scientists about scientific benefits. Atabek & Atabek (2019) add that non-science experts can use the right information for their benefit as research has revealed that consumers develop perceptions (negative, positive, and neutral) and make purchase decisions based on information they have. Science communication is the process of effectively conveying scientific concepts and knowledge to non-scientific audiences.…”