More than just a drink, tea embodies social, cultural, economic and political meanings through time and across cultures. There is an essential tie between media and this meaning-making process. Media often create and ...More than just a drink, tea embodies social, cultural, economic and political meanings through time and across cultures. There is an essential tie between media and this meaning-making process. Media often create and carry the visions of health, nature, tranquility, and prosperity offered by tea. This mediated imaginary seems to persist even in the face of vast human inequalities and suffering and irreversible negative environmental impacts through the current practice of tea production under global conglomerates. Through textual analysis of media narratives of Teavana, a well-known tea brand, this project explores how media's mythic narratives potentially naturalize and celebrate the current production practice and the conspicuous consumption of tea, and silence the human suffering and environmental destruction endured, in order to gratify the very practice and consumption promoted by media.展开更多
文摘More than just a drink, tea embodies social, cultural, economic and political meanings through time and across cultures. There is an essential tie between media and this meaning-making process. Media often create and carry the visions of health, nature, tranquility, and prosperity offered by tea. This mediated imaginary seems to persist even in the face of vast human inequalities and suffering and irreversible negative environmental impacts through the current practice of tea production under global conglomerates. Through textual analysis of media narratives of Teavana, a well-known tea brand, this project explores how media's mythic narratives potentially naturalize and celebrate the current production practice and the conspicuous consumption of tea, and silence the human suffering and environmental destruction endured, in order to gratify the very practice and consumption promoted by media.