Name, Rank & Cereal Number: COMMUNICATION FACULT Y BLEND TEACHING, RESEARCH AND FOOD POLICY Dr. Matt Ritter, Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication & Dr. Sarah Vaala, Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication
It started one day as an office brainstorming
of consuming breakfast cereals, especially those
session. Hands-on experience is vital to student
high in sugar. We reasoned that examining cereal
learning and we were feverishly attempting
packaging might be of interest to our strategic
to conceptualize a project that could integrate
communication students — many of them plan to
the ideas we were teaching in our respective
pursue marketing careers. Our respective research
course sections of Research Methods with actual
interests intersected in the cereal aisle too — Dr.
research. It ended as a published manuscript
Vaala has studied the impact of licensed media
calling on manufacturers to rethink how they
characters on children’s impressions of cereal
market ready-to-eat cereals to children.
taste, while Dr. Ritter has examined how the fast
Back to the brainstorming session. Both of us have young children and understand the frustration many parents face walking
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food industry modified its advertising practices in the 1990s in response to the growing childhood obesity epidemic.
down the cereal aisle at the supermarket.
Dr. Vaala asked, “Why not buy some cereal boxes
Bombarding those little eyes is a barrage of
and have the students code those?” A content
not-so-clandestine messages designed to
analysis could interweave our respective interests
convince children of the pleasurable merits
by documenting child-oriented features on cereal
The Lighted Lamp | Fall 2020
