The serious side to funny cartoons: understanding public perception of wine through cartoon content analysis

ABSTRACT Understanding public perception of a wine festival, organic wine, or the impact of climate change on wine quality can be a complex task. Wine consumers’ opinions, thoughts, feelings and attitudes seem to appear in traditional channels, such as newspapers and magazines, as well as in digital channels, such as blogs, tweets, text messages, social media comments, and consumer ratings. These come in all sorts of formats, but most commonly through text (e.g. posts, tweets) and images (e.g. pictures and videos). Content analysis can be an effective way to understand these widely shared means of expressing sentiment towards a wine and the wine industry. This article examines 300 wine cartoons using a content analysis method that classifies their content into four analytical dimensions: narrative, domestication, binary struggle, and normative transference. This cartoon content analysis reveals details of how different types of wine customers consume and evaluate wine across contexts (e.g. wine in restaurants or at home). This analysis also explores public perception trends regarding wine: social status associations, emotional consumer responses, and consumption-specific concerns. We conclude by discussing future research directions and managerial implications.