Entomophagy and media/design

In the past 20 years entomophagy has filled the sensationalism time/space slots of mass media. Only a brief serious, documentary on “mini-livestock” as the food of the future was presented by World of Wonder in 1997. Recently, a cooking show on public television by one of the co-authors has featured edible insects and this symposium will mark the start of a full-length documentary on the issue. Design research methodologies reveal psychological and behavioral trends that inform new ways of thinking about entomophagy. Design communicates entomophagical knowledge by translating complex information into engaging forms of media to expand awareness in the public. Branding can be a powerful design tool that can ignite a movement around entomophagy as a cultural identity. Integration of design with entomophagical efforts can allow for development of intelligible and accessible tools, and enables us to ask larger, more compelling questions about the future of entomophagy.

Video is the currently the most popular mode of communication available. Americans watch between 3 and 7 hours per day, on average, of some form of video media, be it television or the web. Compare this to the average of 5-25 minutes per day spent reading, and the message is clear: effective communication must have a video element in order to be truly successful. Furthermore, entomophagy already goes against such deep cultural biases of Europeans and Euro-Americans that it will take more than logical rhetoric to persuade these dominant cultures to give it a try. In this case, it is vital that entomophagy be positively modeled for a mass audience: people must see other people who look, act, and speak like they do eating insects, and not only surviving the experience, but enjoying it.