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.