Wine, Wasabi and Weight Loss

Abstract

This paper examines how different newspapers display Bourdieu's tastes of luxury or necessity, and how those tastes shifted during the economic recession that began in 2007. I examined the food sections of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and USA Today, major newspapers with differing compositions of capital, to see if the writers' cultural dispositions mirrored Bourdieu's expectations that those with high amounts of capital favor form over function while those with less capital favor function over form. Coding articles from 2004 through 2009 allowed me to determine if their dispositions changed during the recession. Supporting the conclusions of many scholars, I found that food writers' expressions of taste corresponded with the capital levels of their newspapers. I also found that the Wall Street Journal writers intensified the expression of their cultural disposition during the economic crisis, which I believe serves to reinforce the status of cultural producers in uncertain times.