Superfoods Coverage in the Ibero-American Digital Press during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This paper carries out a systematic review of the news about the so-called «superfoods» published in the digital media of Ibero-American countries from the beginning of the pandemic until 2022. Superfoods have no scientific or legal definition and are used in the media and marketing industry. A total of 796 documents were collected, counting only those news items directly related to the study subject and under the Boolean search criterion of superfoods. Once the database was cleaned, the number of documents was reduced to 64 news items from 34 digital media. This way, a descriptive and content analysis was implemented, taking into account the type of information transmitted, the scientific evidence of the news item and the multimedia resources used. In short, it is corroborated that numerous promotional publications of certain foods are considered "super" without a rigorous or scientific informative quality.