Promoting ‘Good’ Food in Italy
Positive Evaluation and Fear Appeal in Promotional Discourse
Abstract
This paper examines how Italian food is promoted in non-commercial institutional and sectoral discourse, comparing two sub-corpora: the website of the Italian Ministry of Health and that of Coldiretti. Combining word-frequency output with qualitative discourse analysis, it investigates the interplay of positive evaluation and fear appeal across health, cultural identity, sustainability and economic value. Both actors construct Italian food as ‘good’, yet differently: the Ministry integrates risk awareness into public-health education, whereas Coldiretti reserves conflictual framing for external threats.
Submitted: July 29, 2026 | Accepted: Aug. 3, 2026 | Published Oct. 22, 2026 | Language: en
Keywords Gastronationalism • Fear appeal • Promotional discourse • Food discourse • Positive evaluation
Copyright © 2026 Stefania Maci, Michele Sala. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOc/2499-1562/2026/16/001