Eat Meat and Question Everything: Reconstructing health knowledge through the carnivore diet controversy on social media

Sammanfattning

In the digital age, health information is no longer limited to authorities or institutions, but circulates across actors and media channels. This thesis explores the collective promotion and communication of the carnivore diet online. Through a qualitative content analysis and digital ethnography of posts and comments on Instagram and Reddit, it examines the construction and legitimisation of health knowledge. It additionally investigates the meanings emerging through the diet in its contestation of formal health institutions. Using theories of promiscuous knowledge, social problems work and connective engagement, the thesis contributes to an understanding of how contemporary meanings of health and illness are expanded and constantly negotiated online. It reflects on the role of digital platforms in the rearrangement of power positions to formulate health arguments and acquire credibility. The findings reveal that the carnivore diet is framed as an alternative approach to health that is being maintained through shared experiences and health beliefs in online communities. The carnivore diet, distrust and digitally composed health knowledge intersect to construct broader social problematisations of contemporary health establishments, in which adherents act as significant claims-makers. The findings induce broader epistemic questions addressing the implications of a fragmented modern health landscape. It followingly highlights the significance of researching social processes of knowledge and mobilisation of online engagement to grasp alternative meanings, causes and solutions to public health. Ultimately, the thesis points to the importance and need for continued research on the carnivore diet as well as online engagement of alternative knowledge forms in our age.