The Culinary Blogosphere

While culinary bloggers’ main activity consists in publishing recipes, they do also publish reviews on food or kitchen apparatus. In so doing, they become prescribers. This prescribing role is clearly demonstrated by the interest that public relations agencies, the agri-food industry and the manufacturers of kitchen apparatus show in these bloggers, whom they approach to review their products. Who do the Internet users who follow the bloggers’ prescriptions trust? A quantitative survey on 621 French culinary bloggers highlights the characteristics of the bloggers’ relation to the commodification of reviewing. The culinary blogosphere seems to be structured according to the intensity of bloggers’ practices, their audience ratings and their relationship with brands. The bloggers’ ability to produce reviews that have impact largely depends on their activity and their audience levels, as well as the “quality” of their audience. Audience leads to quantitatively and qualitatively different partnerships, depending on whether they consist only of peers or of a broader public.