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Abstract

Background

Food waste has doubled since 2021. International organizations and researchers argue that multiple stakeholders—and the field of marketing in particular—can help mitigate this problem by promoting sustainable lifestyles through social media. Message framing is known to influence consumers’ sustainable behavior. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding how different sources frame food waste messages on social media or which groups lead these communications.

Focus of the Article

This research addresses this gap by showing what group of senders lead communication about food waste and how different groups frame food waste messages on X.

Method

Posts in English containing the hashtag #foodwaste published between May and October 2022 were collected using a combination of the Twitter API and the social networking scraper SNS in Python. Characteristics of users generating the posts were retrieved from their profiles and analyzed using content analysis. Using social network analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis, the main group of hashtags used as frames were classified to determine the frames used by every group of users.

Research Questions

What actors lead the communication regarding food waste on X? How do different actors frame their food waste messages on X?

Importance to the Social Marketing Field

This explorative study focuses on prospect theory, specifically on message framing for social marketing research.

Results

Companies led the #foodwaste communications on X. Among the 10 groups of message senders identified, seven used a “loss” frame, whereas five employed a “doing more” frame. However, these messages did not encompass all possible solutions to the problem, suggesting that #foodwaste communications on X emphasize the negative consequences of food waste more than the actions or behaviors needed to reduce it.

Recommendations for Research or Practice

Stakeholder groups seeking to combat food waste through social marketing campaigns on social media should focus on communicating practical, research-based actions and behaviors, using slogan hashtags to enhance engagement. They should also involve diverse stakeholders in the design process to create more targeted and effective campaigns. This study adds to the literature on food waste message framing for social marketing by providing a comprehensive view of the frames used by different sources when communicating about the food waste issue. Furthermore, it identifies information that could be disseminated, offers recommendations for stakeholders interested in enhancing their communication efforts to reduce food waste, and provides suggestions for future research.

Keywords

food waste social media social marketing message framing network analysis

Introduction

Although 783 million people suffer from hunger, one-third of the food produced for human consumption is wasted (FAO, 2019b; UNEP, 2024). Food loss occurs during production, post-harvest, and processing, whereas food waste occurs at the retail and consumer levels (Rezaei & Liu, 2017). Food loss and waste account for 8%–10% of global greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to biodiversity loss (UNEP, 2021, 2024). Despite the significance of food waste for sustainability, global food waste increased from 931 million tonnes in 2021 to 1.05 billion tonnes in 2022 (UNEP, 2024).

As reducing food waste is a huge task for only one stakeholder, the United Nations Environment Program (2024) invites governments, businesses, researchers, and NGOs to join efforts to change practices and behaviors. Various institutions, scholars, and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) advocate for the use of social media to disseminate information aimed at reducing food waste (End Food Waste, 2024; FDA, 2024; Jenkins et al., 2022; UNSDG, 2017) because consumers rely on social media to gain knowledge about sustainability issues (Huang et al., 2019). Research indicates that trust in social media enhances its influence on consumers’ sustainable attitudes. In other words, the greater consumers’ trust, the more their attitudes are shaped by the content they see and engage with on social media (Zafar et al., 2021). Through social interactions, observations, and exchanges of information and opinions on social media, it is possible to influence consumers’ opinions and beliefs regarding sustainable behaviors (Abrahamse & Steg, 2013), increase food waste awareness (Lazell, 2016), shape related attitudes and social norms (Teoh et al., 2022), and ultimately reduce food waste (Young et al., 2017).

A range of actors use social media to share initiatives and ideas related to food waste and to promote behavioral changes addressing the issue. Senders shape their messages by highlighting aspects of information, making them more noticeable, meaningful, or memorable to their audiences (Entman, 1993). They select certain aspects of reality and suggest issues, interpretations, evaluations, or treatments (Entman, 1993; Gamson & Modigliani, 1989) or employ a specific linguistic style to enhance consumer engagement (Lee & Theokary, 2021). How sources frame information on social media affects the efficiency and effectiveness of social marketing communication for sustainable behavior (Florence et al., 2022; Huang et al., 2019; Kapoor et al., 2021). Therefore, scholars emphasize the importance of analyzing how various sources frame their sustainability and environmental messages on social media (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012; Saxton & Waters, 2014; Shin & Ki, 2022).

Research on message framing of environmental and sustainability issues on social media remains limited. Furthermore, existing studies have either neglected to classify message senders (e.g., Huttunen & Albrecht, 2021; Lee & Weder, 2021; Meza & Yamanaka, 2020; Mörner & Olausson, 2017) or have focused on only one or two types of senders (e.g., Almaghlouth, 2022; Galiano-Coronil et al., 2024; Lee & Theokary, 2021; Ma et al., 2024; Paliwoda-Matiolańska & Nakayama, 2024; Shin & Ki, 2022; Small & Warn, 2020). Furthermore, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no studies have provided a comprehensive overview of the various actors sharing food waste messages on social media and the frames they employ.

To address this gap, this exploratory study contributes to the examination of message framing on social media by identifying the frames utilized by different actors communicating about the food waste issue on X (aka Twitter).

Background

Message Framing

Message framing is rooted in prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). It “is the process by which a communication source constructs and defines a social or political issue for its audience” (Nelson et al., 1997, p. 221). Senders “select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (Entman, 1993, p. 51). In environmental advocacy, how messages are framed affects how audiences view environmental issues and their solutions (Zeng et al., 2019). Environmental advocates often use framing strategies to highlight the urgency of issues like decarbonization (Cha & Pastor, 2022), climate change (Vu et al., 2021), policy changes (Zeng et al., 2019), or energy justice (Shelton & Eakin, 2022), among others. The way environmental messages are framed can influence public attitudes, policy decisions, and willingness to act, making message framing a key part of effective environmental communication. Frames in messages can be classified into message framing orientation (Carlson et al., 1993, 1996), problem definition framing (Davis, 1995), target framing (Davis, 1995; Green & Peloza, 2014; White & Peloza, 2009), and action framing (Davis, 1995).

Message orientation refers to the focus of an environmental message. The original categories include product, process, and image orientation (Carlson et al., 1993). Product orientation focuses on a product’s sustainable attributes (e.g., biodegradability). Process orientation refers to the organization’s internal technology, production technique, and/or disposal method (e.g., less packaging). Image orientation associates an organization with an environmental cause or activity (e.g., preserving forests). The fourth category, environmental facts, added later, refers to the environmental issue addressed in the message (e.g., clean energy) (Carlson et al., 1993, 1996; Shin & Ki, 2022).

Davis (1995) introduced the concept of problem definition framing, also known as gain and loss framing. Messages are framed positively, emphasizing benefits or solutions (gain) or negatively highlighting losses (loss) (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), or focusing on negative outcomes of nonaction (e.g., plastic pollution crisis, climate crisis) (Ballestar et al., 2022). Compared to loss frame, a gain frame increases attitude toward the advertisement, attitude toward the brand, and purchase intention (Segev et al., 2016). Nevertheless, effective message valence depends on the message attributes, the product/idea characteristics, the source, and the consumer’s characteristics (Septianto et al., 2019).

Target framing was also proposed by Davis (1995), who defined it as focusing on the group that experiences either a positive or negative consequence resulting from action or inaction. In other words, it highlights “the individual at risk, the person who will be directly affected by the results of action or nonaction,” for example, the current generation (short term) or future generations (long term) (Davis, 1995, p. 286). Besides benefiting individuals or society, promoting sustainable products and policies also appeals to altruistic claims that benefit the environment (Green & Peloza, 2014; White & Peloza, 2009). Thus, the target framing can be personal, social, or environmental (Florence et al., 2022). Historically, research on the self-other frame and its impact on sustainable consumer behavior has produced inconsistent results. Some studies found the self-focused frame to be more effective, whereas others favored the societal or environmental frame (Florence et al., 2022). Nonetheless, recent studies have shown that the environmental frame encourages more sustainable behavior than the others (Lee, 2024), and that pro-environmental attitudes are stronger predictors of behavior when personal costs are low or environmental benefits are high (Wyss et al., 2022).

Action framing refers to communications that provide simple and specific recommendations for action (Davis, 1995). They are divided into “taking less” (e.g., conservation, saving water) or “doing more” (e.g., recycling, composting).

Frames can influence how a problem is perceived and, therefore, how alternative decisions are evaluated (Davis, 1995). In social marketing, the effects of message framing on sustainable consumer behavior (Levin et al., 1998) have been widely examined regarding issues such as energy use, waste management, ethical consumption, and sustainable transportation, among others (Florence et al., 2022). These studies have found positive and negative results; for an overview of message framing effects on sustainable consumer behavior for social marketing, see Florence et al. (2022); for framing research on climate change communication, see Schäfer and O’Neill (2017). Nevertheless, most of these studies have been conducted considering traditional media, and few have focused on social media (Sewak et al., 2021; Shin & Ki, 2022).

Message Framing in Social Media

How messages are framed on social media and their further impact depends on sources’ perception and interpretations of sustainability (Kemper & Ballantine, 2019). Various users send information about environmental and sustainability-related topics on social media. They can be regular consumers (Huang et al., 2019; Saunders et al., 2015), businesses (DiRusso & Myrick, 2021), communities (Ahmed & Gibreel, 2021), influencers (Balaji et al., 2021), NPOs (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012), governmental organizations, and other institutions (Ballestar et al., 2022; Ledford, 2012). These sources frame sustainable and environmental messages in different ways on social media (Lovejoy et al., 2012; Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012; Mangold & Faulds, 2009; Wang et al., 2023). Senders elevate the salience of information, making it “more noticeable, meaningful, or memorable to audiences” (Entman, 1993, p. 53), selecting some aspects of reality, suggesting issues, interpretations, evaluations, or treatments (Entman, 1993; Gamson & Modigliani, 1989) or using determined linguistic style to increase consumers’ engagement (Lee & Theokary, 2021). With their messages, social media sources can influence pro-sustainable consumers’ choices (Kapoor & Banerjee, 2025; Kapoor et al., 2021; Shihab et al., 2025) and the adoption of sustainable consumption behaviors (Goworek et al., 2012) or drive consumers away from these positive behaviors (Simeone & Scarpato, 2020).

Despite the importance of frames utilized by various sources on social media, studies analyzing message framing in this context have not revealed the frames employed by different senders (e.g., Huttunen & Albrecht, 2021; Lee & Weder, 2021; Meza & Yamanaka, 2020; Mörner & Olausson, 2017) or have only focused on one or two types of senders such as NPOs (Galiano-Coronil et al., 2024; Ma et al., 2024; Shin & Ki, 2022), companies (Galiano-Coronil et al., 2024; Paliwoda-Matiolańska & Nakayama, 2024; Shin & Ki, 2022), activists (Small & Warn, 2020), governmental organizations (Almaghlouth, 2022) or influencers (Lee & Theokary, 2021). These studies have found that activists elevate issues that trigger moral outrage, aiming to influence the government into implementing specific policy actions (Small & Warn, 2020). Governmental organizations (i.e., Saudi Green Initiative) show a contextualized national identity and discourses of action regarding consequences/risks, economy, and tourism when communicating about sustainability (Almaghlouth, 2022). Some corporations emphasize manufacturing processes and energy issues of green products when posting environmentally related messages (Shin & Ki, 2022); energy companies use a positive narrative to position themselves as providers of a clean and sustainable energy transformation (Paliwoda-Matiolańska & Nakayama, 2024); and other companies use frames of renewability, carbon neutrality, forest conservation, and community development, positioning themselves as sustainability leaders (Kinefuchi, 2024). NPOs raise awareness of environmental problems by highlighting negative issues (Shin & Ki, 2022), framing information with positive emotional appeals (Ma et al., 2024), or maintaining predictable communication patterns—focusing on specific topics and increasing post frequency only during emergencies that require urgent action (Galiano-Coronil et al., 2024).

When using social media, consumers are exposed to a narrower range of issues and views that do not represent public opinion alone (McGregor, 2019). The sources of sustainable knowledge and the ways they present information on social media affect the reach and impact of social marketing aimed at promoting sustainable behaviors (Florence et al., 2022; Huang et al., 2019; Kapoor et al., 2021). Consequently, it is crucial to identify how different social media sources frame a particular social or environmental issue, both to understand existing messaging and to determine the most effective ways to present information that encourages positive sustainable behaviors among consumers. However, no studies have examined how different sources frame the issue of food waste on social media. Prior research has analyzed food waste content in terms of sentiment and emotion without classifying users or message frames (e.g., Jenkins et al., 2023), or has focused on specific events, such as Food Waste Week in Finland (Sutinen & Närvänen, 2022) or the U.S. Food Waste crisis (Specht & Buck, 2019).

Therefore, this explorative study investigates how the issue of food waste is framed on social media, aiming to provide a comprehensive view of the frames used by different sources. To this end, the study analyzed posts on X (formerly Twitter) containing the hashtag #foodwaste, combining content and network analysis to identify the frames employed by various sources. The following research questions were addressed:

RQ1: What actors lead the communication regarding food waste on X?

RQ2: How do different actors frame their food waste messages on X?

Method

Data Retrieval and Cleaning

A total of 10,000 original English posts were retrieved using the hashtag #foodwaste as a search keyword. The Tweets were posted between May and October 2022. A combination of the Twitter API and the social networking scraper SNS in Python was used to retrieve them. Posts were limited to English since it is the most common language used on Twitter (Alshaabi et al., 2021). To avoid duplicate information, retweets were not considered. Hashtags were cleaned and lowercased. A total of 1441 posts containing only the hashtag #foodwaste were removed, as the aim of this study was to analyze the hashtags related to the hashtag #foodwaste. Thus, 8558 posts were used for further analysis.

Text Analysis

Tweets were analyzed using the text-analysis software KHCoder (https://khcoder.net/en/). The hashtags foodwaste, as well as the hashtags food, and waste, were ignored because they represented the main hashtag. A first analysis revealed 7269 hashtags with a total of 28,059 mentions. To ensure the inclusion of the most representative hashtags, only those with 10 or more mentions were selected for further analysis. Consequently, 402 hashtags with a total of 16,117 (57%) mentions were utilized for in-depth examination. Words having the same meaning were converted into codes to be identified by KHCoder as the same word (e.g. technology or tech = technology), resulting in 373 final hashtags.

A matrix of documents and hashtags was created using the same program. Each time a hashtag appeared in a post, it was recorded in the matrix with a 1, whereas a 0 was assigned if the hashtag was not included. Ultimately, only 6,827 posts were used for analysis, as posts not containing any of the 373 hashtags were excluded.

Analysis of Sources

The final 6,827 posts were created by 3,263 users. The public profile information of users available in their X accounts was retrieved. This information was then analyzed, and sources were classified using inductive content analysis. Finally, the number and percentage of users and posts were calculated for each group of sources.

Network Analysis

This study aimed to use network analysis of hashtags as a content analysis method to identify message frames in social media. Previous research has shown that hashtags can effectively reveal frames about sustainability and environmental issues (e.g., Almaghlouth, 2022; Paliwoda-Matiolańska & Nakayama, 2024), as certain words such as recyclable, ozone safe, ozone friendly, green, and degradable/biodegradable (Davis, 1995) indicate the presence of a frame in a sentence (König & Maier, 2024; Shah et al., 2002). Network analysis of hashtags examines frequencies and associations, and maps the network structure of nodes (i.e., words, hashtags), and edges (i.e., relationships, co-occurrences) related to specific topics or message frames (Lambert, 2017; Maye et al., 2021; Siew et al., 2019), effectively identifying frames in social media discourse (Karami et al., 2020; La Rocca & Boccia Artieri, 2022). By employing this approach, this study provides deeper insights into the structure of food waste frames in communications on X.

Using the matrix of documents and hashtags, a “one-mode” or “adjacency” matrix containing the 373 hashtags x 373 hashtags matrix was developed for network analysis using the program UCINET 6 (Borgatti et al., 2002). Using the same program, measures of node centrality, such as degree and eigenvector centrality, were conducted. Centrality measures and cluster analysis have previously been effectively employed to classify networks of relevant words on Twitter (Himelboim et al., 2017).

Degree centrality scores indicate how many other nodes or actors are connected to a specific node. It reflects the relationship of one node with others, determining how many other actors are adjacent to that node (Scott, 2017). Eigenvector centrality determines how central a hashtag is by using the largest eigenvector of the network matrix. Unlike degree centrality, which simply awards one point for each neighboring node, this measure allocates points proportionally based on the centrality scores of the neighbors. This approach assesses a node’s centrality based on the largest eigenvector of the network matrix (Newman, 2018). A hashtag with a low degree can have a higher eigenvector centrality score than a hashtag with a high degree if the former is connected to more popular hashtags, whereas the latter is not. This measure is frequently viewed as an indicator of popularity because a node with high eigenvector centrality is linked to other well-connected nodes (Borgatti et al., 2017).

Next, hierarchical cluster analysis was employed to group hashtags with similar centrality measures. Hierarchical cluster analysis is among the most used methods for community detection (Newman, 2018). Based on a network of nodes or actors and a defined measure of similarity or connection strength between them, the program groups the most similar words together to form groups (Newman, 2018). The analysis was performed based on the previously developed centrality measures considering Euclidean distances and Ward’s aggregation criterion. A preliminary analysis was developed on KHCoder and a confirmatory analysis was developed on SPSS. The agglomeration stages on KHCoder and the final dendrogram performed in SPSS enabled the identification of groups of hashtags with similar centrality for the definition of the leading group of hashtags (Figures A1 and A2).

Graphs showing the networks of hashtags were developed using the visualization software Gephi 0.10 (https://gephi.org/).

Classification of Hashtags

Finally, the most used hashtags and their top 10 related hashtags were classified by deductively applying established theory-based framing frameworks. Therefore, the classification was developed using the logic and examples of the original message orientation framing (Carlson et al., 1993, 1996), problem definition framing (Davis, 1995), action framing (Davis, 1995), and target framing (Davis, 1995; Green & Peloza, 2014; White & Peloza, 2009) (Table 1). To assess how well the hashtags aligned with the 10 different frames, one question was created for each frame. For example, “Does the hashtag focus on a product or its environmentally friendly attributes?” (message orientation: product orientation), “Does it focus on an organization or link an organization to an environmental cause or activity?” (message orientation: image orientation), or “Does it suggest that individuals or society can benefit from engaging in pro-environmental behaviors?” (target: individual/society).

Table 1.

Coding Scheme of Related #Foodwaste Hashtags

Message orientation (a)	Product orientation: The focus is on the product or its environmentally friendly attributes. Example: biodegradable, ecofriendly.
	Process orientation: It addresses the organization’s internal technology, production technique and/or disposal method. Example: Waste management,
	Image orientation: It focuses on the organization or associates an organization with an environmental cause or activity. Example: Save the children, CSR.
Problem definition framing (b)	Gain: It highlights the benefits of pro-environmental behaviors. Example: Energy conservation, sustainability.
	Loss: It emphasizes loss avoidable by doing pro-environmental behaviors. Example: Climate change, food crisis.
Action framing (b)	Taking less: Restraining anti-environmental behaviors. Example: Reduce, save water.
	Doing more: It suggests to engage in pro-environmental behaviors. Example: Recycle, reuse.
Target framing (b, c)	Individuals: The message states that individuals or the society can benefit by doing pro-environmental behaviors. Example: For you, community, society.
	Other: It states that the environment or other (not individuals) can be improved by doing pro-environmental behaviors. Example: Environment, agriculture.

(a) Carlson et al. (1993, 1996), (b) Davis (1995), (c) Green and Peloza (2014), White and Peloza (2009).

Results

Analysis of Senders

A total of 3,264 senders were identified. The accounts of 246 were no longer available. The remaining 3018 users were classified into 10 categories using the information publicly available on their profiles (Table 2). Companies were divided into four groups: “Agricultural/Farm companies” producing food, “Food-related companies” managing or selling food to consumers, “Media companies,” and “Other companies” not directly related to the production and commercialization of food products to consumers or to media companies.

Table 2.

Number of Users and Posts by Classification of Users

Group of users	No of users	%	No of posts	%
Agricultural/Farm companies	63	1.93	125	1.83
Education/Schools	42	1.29	56	0.82
Food-related companies	148	4.53	334	4.89
Governmental agencies/Embassies/International organizations	184	5.64	397	5.82
Media company	412	12.62	852	12.48
Network/Associations	103	3.16	194	2.84
NGO/Foundations/Activists	434	13.30	1154	16.90
Other companies	620	19.00	1631	23.89
Regular users	861	26.38	1326	19.42
University/Research project/Consortium	151	4.63	280	4.10
Not available anymore	246	7.54	478	7.00
Total	3264	100.00	6827	100.00

Altogether, companies were the biggest group, followed by “Regular users” (n = 861, 26.38%) and “NGO/Foundations/Activists” (n = 434, 13.30%). Regarding the number of posts, “Other companies” posted most of the messages (23.89%), followed by the groups of “Regular users” (19.42%), and “NGO/Foundations/Activists” (16.90%) (Table 2).

Content of the Posts

From the 373 final hashtags contained in a total of 6827 posts, the top five hashtags by frequency were sustainability (f = 1107, 12.94%), followed by zerowaste (f = 432, 5.05%), foodloss (f = 415, 4.85%), composting (f = 366, 4.28%), and foodlossandwaste (f = 345, 4.03%) (Table 3) (see Table A1 for a complete list of hashtags).

Table 3.

Top 20 Hashtags by Frequency, Degree, and Eigenvector Centrality Scores

Hashtag	Frequency	%	Degree	Eigenvector centrality
sustainability	1107	12.94%	279	0.241961598
zerowaste	432	5.05%	179	0.189028099
climatechange	268	3.13%	163	0.173644200
environment	232	2.71%	144	0.162518322
foodsecurity	259	3.03%	140	0.155990317
recycle	336	3.93%	129	0.145377964
foodloss	415	4.85%	124	0.143625751
hunger	299	3.49%	109	0.138458192
composting	366	4.28%	121	0.137993470
climateaction	181	2.11%	110	0.129936323
worldfoodday	245	2.86%	93	0.121455692
sdg*	124	1.45%	87	0.120267555
stopfoodwaste	150	1.75%	91	0.115068711
agriculture	71	0.83%	88	0.113254182
foodlossandwaste	345	4.03%	94	0.113133654
foodie	146	1.71%	93	0.112580702
organic	96	1.12%	85	0.111450113
zerohunger	172	2.01%	85	0.11024683
circulareconomy	167	1.95%	84	0.105487511
wastemanagement	180	2.10%	81	0.104735695

* Sustainable development goals.

Network and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis

The hashtags were analyzed using social network analysis. The eigenvector centrality scores revealed that the hashtags sustainability, zerowaste, climatechange, environment, and foodsecurity were the five most central hashtags (Table 3). Figure 1 displays the full network structure of hashtags, emphasizing the top 20 hashtags by eigenvector centrality. The thickness of the lines shows how often each pair of hashtags appears together, and the size of the hashtags reflects their eigenvector centrality score.

Figure 1.

Complete network structure showing the top 20 hashtags by eigenvector centrality

The hierarchical cluster analysis performed identified five groups of hashtags. Although group 5 had the highest centrality score, it was formed by only one word (i.e., sustainability), which appeared frequently in the posts. Therefore, group 4 was selected as the one containing the main hashtags framing the messages, because it was the second group having the highest centrality scores (Table A2). This group included 13 framing hashtags: climateaction, climatechange, composting, environment, foodlossandwaste, foodie, foodloss, foodsecurity, hunger, recycle, wastemanagement, worldfoodday, and zerowaste.

Figure 2 illustrates the network structure of the 13 framing hashtags and their top 10 related hashtags. The thickness of the lines indicates how often each pair of hashtags appeared together, and the size of the words reflects the degree score. A complete table displaying the hashtags used by each user group, normalized by the number of posts per group, is available in the Supplementary Material (Table A3), along with their top 10 related hashtags (Table A4).

Figure 2.

Main 13 hashtags and their 10 most frequently related hashtags

Classification of Hashtags

Besides the original classifications provided by different authors (Table 1), this study found combined hashtags for the action framing (i.e., sharemorewasteless) alongside three secondary framing hashtags that complement the other frames: knowledge, time, and activity. They were used to highlight “knowledge” (i.e., dyk = Did you Know) to deliver information and raise awareness by sharing facts or statistics; “time” (e.g., happeningnow) to denote the timing of what is occurring; and “activity” (i.e., foodphotography) associated with the food domain but not primarily used to signal environmental messaging (Table 4).

Table 4.

Classification of the 13 Main Hashtags and Their 10 Most Related Hashtags

Message orientation (a)	Product	bin, ecofriendly, foodday, idaflw, lastmilefood, organic, plasticfree, sdg, worldfoodday.
	Process	circulareconomy, foodsystem, wastemanagement
	Image	biogreen360
Problem definition framing (b)	Gain	foodsecurity, fresherfuture, nutrition, socialimpact, sustainability, sustainableliving, zerofoodwaste, zerohunger, zerowaste
Problem definition framing (b)	Loss	climatechange, climatecrisis, emission, foodcrisis, foodlossandwaste, foodshortage, foodwasteeu, hunger, kitchenwaste
Action framing (b)	Taking less	notwasting, reduce, reducewaste, stopfoodwaste
	Doing more	climateaction, composting, endhunger, endpoverty, foodrescue, gardening, gogreen, recycle, reuse
	Combined	sharemorewasteless
Target framing (b, c)	Individuals	community, foodblogger, foodie, foodlover
Target framing (b, c)	Other	agriculture, climate, earthandwheat, environment, landfill
Secondary (d)	Knowledge	dyk (Did you know)
	Time	happeningnow
	Activity	foodphotography

(a) Carlson et al. (1993, 1996), (b) Davis (1995), (c) Green and Peloza (2014), White and Peloza (2009), (d) frames found in this research.

Frames Used by the Different Sources

When analyzing the two main topics used by different groups, only 8 out of the 13 main topics were prominent: climateaction, composting, foodloss, foodlossandwaste, hunger, recycle, worldfoodday, and zerowaste. Climateaction, composting, and recycling were classified as “doing more” for the environment; hunger, foodloss, and foodlossandwaste highlight the “losses” that could be avoided by performing pro-environmental behaviors; and zerowaste as a “gain” obtained by addressing environmental behaviors. Finally, the woldfoodday was classified as a product orientation.

Loss Frames

Three groups used foodlossandwaste and foodloss as main framing hashtags. “Governmental agencies/Embassies/International organizations” used them mostly in combination with dyk and idaflw, to highlight the celebration of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste (IDAFLW) on the 29 of September; “Network/Associations” in combination with idaflw, to highlight the foodwasteeu and the role of foodsystems for nutrition and foodsecurity; and the “University/Research project/Consortium” to frame the idaflw celebration day, but also emphasizing the food waste in Europe (foodwasteeu).

Doing More Frames

Composting and recycle were used by “Other companies” to promote their composting or recycling (recycle) services, for wastemanagement to the community, or to promote their ecofriendly and plasticfree products, for example, compostablebags, bins (compostbins), to contribute to zerowaste. “Media companies” used them in combination with sustainability, zerowaste, and sustainableliving, urging to reduce and reuse, among others.

Combined Frames

The “gain” frame was combined with “doing more” and “loss” framings. On the one hand, the “gain”/“doing more” frame was used by “Food-related companies” using zerowaste mostly in combination with climateaction, to emphasize a “gain” (i.e., zerowaste) that can be reached by “doing more” (i.e., climateaction) for sustainability, foodsecurity, a fresherfuture to avoid “losses” such as foodlossandwaste, foodloss, climatechange, climatecrisis. On the other hand, “NGOs/Foundations/Activists” used a “gain”/“loss” framing with foodloss and zerowaste in combination with foodsecurity, nutrition, or notwasting. Some messages were posted on September 29, the IDAFLW (idaflw), to highlight climatechange, climateaction, and climatecrisis among others. “Regular users” used zerowaste (i.e., gain) in combination with hunger (i.e., loss) to call foodies and other individuals to rescue food (foodrescue) to endhunger (zerohunger), and avoid foodinsecurity impacting society positively (socialimpact) for sustainability. Some messages were posted during World Food Safety Day (i.e., June 7), which draws attention to food safety incidents, and World Food Day (i.e., October 16), which highlights the right to nutritious, safe, and affordable foods for all. Regular users used the hashtag worldfoodday for these two days indistinctly, suggesting a lack of knowledge regarding the difference between these two celebration days.

Other combinations were “doing more”/“loss” framing, as well as “loss”/“product” framing. For example, “Agricultural/Farm companies” used the hashtag composting in combination with foodloss to highlight composting as an answer to foodwaste to contribute to zerowaste using an ecofriendly and organic fertilizer for the benefit of the landfill. The “Education/Schools” group used hunger in combination with worldfoodday, mainly during World Food Day (i.e., October 16) (foodday/worldfoodday) to call foodies to endhunger, zerohunger.

Discussion

This exploratory study analyzed posts containing the hashtag #foodwaste to identify what actors lead the communication regarding food waste on X and how these different actors frame their food waste messages on this platform. Unlike other studies (e.g., Sutinen & Närvänen, 2022), it was found that companies (i.e., “Agricultural/Farm companies,” “Food-related companies,” “Media companies,” and “Other companies”), followed by regular users, posted the highest number of food waste messages on X. Although food-related companies and agricultural or farm companies are directly related to the food loss and food waste issue (UNEP, 2024), they displayed insignificant activity on X, delivering less than 7% of all messages. “Universities/Foundations/Consortiums” as well as “NGOs/Foundations/Activists” also showed low levels of participation. Therefore, beyond companies and consumers, greater engagement from these organizations and groups remains essential to promote and communicate concrete, research- or practice-based actions to reduce food waste.

The social network analysis revealed sustainability as the most central hashtag in this network, followed by zerowaste, climatechange, environment, and foodsecurity, which function as secondary centers or subfields linked to sustainability. This suggests that using the hashtag sustainability in social marketing campaigns could help connect with different groups to raise awareness and foster broad engagement. Adopting a secondary hub such as zerowaste or foodsecurity may also help target specific communities or issues to motivate audiences regarding particular topics. Therefore, a combined approach can leverage the strengths of both: Using sustainability could maximize reach, and selecting a specific hub or subfield could deliver clear, consistent, and timely information, which is essential for influencing behavior in social marketing (Obinomen & Juntunen, 2025).

Different groups used a specific frame or a combination of frames. From the 10 different groups of users identified here, a “doing more” frame was found in two groups: “Other companies” and “Media companies” (i.e., composting and recycle). This accords with other research that found that for-profit organizations used a “doing more” framing (Shin & Ki, 2022). “Governmental agencies/Embassies/International organizations,” “Universities/Research projects/Consortiums,” and “Network/Associations” used a “loss” frame (i.e., foodlossandwaste and foodloss). This differs from other studies that found that “loss” frames in green messages on social media were uncommon (e.g., König & Maier, 2024; Shin & Ki, 2022). The five other groups used a combined frame. For example, “Regular users” and “NGOs/Foundations/Activists” used a “gain”/“loss” frame (i.e., zerowaste and hunger/foodloss), “Education/Schools” a “loss”/“product” frame (i.e., woldfoodday and hunger), and “Agricultural/Farm companies” a “doing more”/“loss” frame (i.e., composting and foodloss). “Food-related companies” used a combination of “gain/“doing more” frames (i.e., zerowaste and climateaction). These findings differ from those of other studies that found fewer environmental messages on Twitter adopting a combination of frames (Shin & Ki, 2022).

Out of the nine possible frames identified here, only four were prominent: “doing more,” “loss,” “gain,” and “product” orientation. This suggests that food waste communications on X primarily emphasize action- and outcome-oriented frames (i.e., doing more, gain, and loss) and product-focused messages, whereas other potential frames—such as process orientation, image orientation, taking less, or targeting individuals/others, are much less common. This pattern reflects user motivations on X, which tend to favor calls to action and outcome-focused content, as well as the motivations of users participating in these discussions.

Furthermore, corporations were responsible for most of the communications, followed by regular users. Corporations adopted a “doing more” framing or their combinations rather than relying on the message orientation frame often used for studying organization framing. This emphasizes the importance of not studying only predetermined frames for certain groups but staying open to discovering other frames, as highlighted in previous studies (D’Angelo, 2012; López-Rabadán, 2022). Moreover, individuals primarily framed their messages around zerowaste and hunger, using a “gain”/“loss” framing, and focused on specific actions like foodrescue to address issues such as foodinsecurity or endhunger. This combination connects food waste reduction with positive social outcomes. Furthermore, the fact that many posts were published in connection with food-related observance days suggests they do not always differentiate between specific food-related initiatives or international days. This highlights potential gaps in public knowledge that could be addressed through social media messages and might also be a research focus.

Aside from the main 13 framing hashtags, the analysis of their top 10 related hashtags revealed a combined “doing more”/“taking less” hashtag: sharemorewastelaste, alongside three secondary hashtags identified here that highlight “knowledge” dissemination (i.e., dyk), timeliness or “time” (i.e., happeningnow), and creative engagement through a determined “activity” (i.e., foodphotography). These findings indicate that social media framing strategies are dynamic and continually evolving, influenced by the nature of social media, increasing digitalization, environmental concerns, and evolving social dynamics. This underscores the need to remain open to identifying new and emerging frames and to adapt both theoretical and empirical approaches to capture the creative, participatory, and rapidly changing character of social media discourse (López-Rabadán, 2022). Therefore, future research should focus on expanding these methodological foundations not only to improve the analysis of frames in social media but also to address the growing complexity and interdisciplinarity of the food and social media fields (García-León & Teichert, 2024).

Although the findings regarding the effect of a “gain”/“loss” frames on sustainable consumer behavior have been inconsistent (Florence et al., 2022), those regarding social media suggests that “gain”-framed messages generate high engagement (König & Maier, 2024), and are perceived as more credible than “loss”-framed posts (Balaji et al., 2021). Consumers and businesses worldwide are aware of sustainability issues (WEF, 2021) and the food waste problem (Hoppe & Kleinen-von Königslöw, 2023). Nevertheless, a climate awareness-action gap remains, which suggests that climate awareness and concern are not sufficiently powerful to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (Hochachka, 2024). It is thus necessary to move beyond emphasizing the “losses” or negative aspects of food waste on social media—which tend to provoke anger and other negative emotions (Jenkins et al., 2023)—and instead prioritize solutions, desired behaviors, and specific actions that individuals and companies can take.

Although this study identified “doing more’ frames, they did not encompass all potential solutions. For example, calls for climateaction could be more effective if they highlighted concrete steps to mitigate climate change (Steg, 2023). Regarding composting and recycling, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) notes that composting counts among the least preferred methods of repurposing and recycling food loss and waste (FAO, 2019a). Furthermore, aside from composting and recycle, none of the five other FAO-proposed solutions for addressing food loss and waste (Table 5) appeared as frames, even though they were present among the hashtags (i.e., foodrescue (f = 116), anaerobicdigestion (f = 45), foodwastereduction (f = 21), fertilizer (f = 18), redistribution (f = 12), and animalfeed (f = 10)).

Table 5.

Most and Last Preferred Strategies for Food Loss and Waste Prevention

Most preferred Last preferred	FLW prevention and reduction	Reduction at source Reduce the volume of FLW generated
	FLW prevention and reduction	Food redistribution Donate extra food to food banks, soup kitchens and shelters
	Repurposing and recycling	Animal feed Divert from scraps to animal feed
		Industrial users and fertilizers
		Anaerobic digestion
		Composting
			Incineration and landfill	Incineration/LandfillLast resort for disposal

Note. Adapted from FAO (2019a).

Moreover, among the 15 tips for reducing food waste proposed by the same organization (FAO, 2024) (Table 6) some were identified but weakly posted (i.e., foodlabel (f = 10), leftovers (f = 59), local (f = 12), water (f = 19), sharingiscaring (f = 18)).

Table 6.

15 Quick Tips for Reducing Food Waste

1. Adopt a healthier, more sustainable diet2. Buy only what you need3. Pick ugly fruit and vegetables4. Store food wisely5. Understand food labelling

6. Start small7. Love your leftovers8. Put your food waste to use9. Respect food10. Support local food producers

11. Keep fish populations afloat12. Use less water13. Keep our soils and water clean14. Eat more pulses and veggies15. Sharing is caring

Source: https://www.fao.org/newsroom/story/15-quick-tips-for-reducing-food-waste-and-becoming-a-Food-hero/en.

“Doing more” frames increase message attitude, environmental concerns, and the intention to follow the recommended behavior (Bhatnagar & McKay-Nesbitt, 2016). Thus, organizations, users, or other groups willing to assist with social marketing campaigns against food waste could frame their messages using “doing more” or “taking less” frames to propose specific actions against food waste. They could also use slogan hashtags with positive messages to provide solutions. Studies have shown that consumers hold more favorable attitudes toward slogan hashtags, or “advertising campaign hashtags” than brand-name hashtags (Kim & Phua, 2020). Thus, instead of using one-word-hashtags such as hungry, groups targeting literate consumers regarding food waste solutions or prevention could use slogan hashtags to deliver more structured positive messages encouraging positive behaviors (Ong et al., 2023). For this purpose, network analysis is a valuable tool for identifying not only frames but also the concerns of specific groups, or uncovering information gaps to develop more effective messages or slogans. For example, in this study, network analysis revealed different hashtags that are often used together. Considering the hashtags used by regular users, instead of using two separate hashtags such as endhunger and rescuefood, combining these hashtags into one message, such as endhungerbyrescuingfood or rescuefoodandendhunger, could convey a clear, concise, and consistent message about how to fight hunger. Specific slogans are effective and essential for any movement’s mobilization (Taraktaş et al., 2025). Short hashtag slogans can craft stronger messages that could be used both online and offline. Additionally, slogans could be developed by addressing the main concerns or gaps in information that need to be tackled to combat food waste. Moreover, social marketers could design food waste reduction campaigns in collaboration with targeted groups—such as consumers or organizations—to generate insights and strategies tailored to specific behavior changes (Kim et al., 2020). Such collaboration could also enable social marketers to apply self-efficacy more effectively, depending on whether the target audience prioritizes personal interests, environmental protection, societal benefits, or other motivations. Research has shown that green self-efficacy influences environmental attitudes (Ahmad et al., 2022) by emphasizing the positive impacts of green behavior, encouraging participation, and boosting individual confidence (Zhang & Cham, 2024).

Research has demonstrated that effective social marketing can be achieved by applying the greatest number of social marketing criteria (Roger et al., 2023), such as changing behavior (behavioral objective), audience segmentation, formative research, exchange, marketing mix (price, product, place, promotion), and competition, among others (Andreasen, 2002; Carins & Rundle-Thiele, 2014). Therefore, to design effective food waste campaigns, social marketers should identify a specific target audience, analyze both direct and indirect competitors for that audience’s attention, preferences, and resources, and conduct consumer-oriented formative research to understand relevant contexts, behaviors, barriers, motivators, and preferences. The resulting social media campaigns should focus on achieving clear behavioral change by offering compelling benefits in exchange for the desired behavior, supported by an appropriate marketing mix.

Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research

This study has some limitations. The results here represent only a few months of tweets during a specific year on Twitter. Every second, around 6,000 tweets are published by X (Pikovsky, 2024). Thus, future studies could compare how posts containing the hashtag #foodwaste on X and its related frames per group change temporally, or study the same hashtag on different platforms.

This study analyzed only the hashtags of posts having the targeted keyword #foodwaste. Examining different search keywords or analyzing complete posts could yield different results. Future research could analyze hashtags and full posts, as well as investigate more specific hashtags related to food waste, such as #foodrescue or #pickuglyfruit.

Additionally, this study focused solely on textual content. Analyzing images, videos, or emoticons could provide deeper insights. Further studies might also explore how the framing of messages on social media influences consumer behavior-related food waste.

Conclusions

This study’s findings show that the communication regarding the food waste issue on X is led by companies and regular users. NGOs and universities were less active during the study period, and they missed opportunities to influence and educate using research-based information and practical insights. The identification of central and secondary hashtag hubs highlights the interconnectedness of food waste with broader environmental and social issues addressed by various groups. Ten different source groups were identified. They framed their messages using “loss,” “doing more,” “gain,” and “product” oriented frames and their combinations. At least seven groups included a “loss” frame in their messages. This suggests that food waste messages on X keep focusing on the negative consequences of food waste without suggesting specific actions to stop it. Although five groups included a “doing more” frame in their messages, they did not cover all potential solutions to the food waste issue. This underscores the a need for more focused, solution-oriented communication that moves beyond problem identification to emphasize actionable steps and behavioral change.

Evolving social concerns and social media’s dynamic nature further emphasize the importance of advancing the theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches used in framing research. Additionally, the focus on losses by many actors, third party inactivity, and gaps in suggested solutions point to the potential for social marketing messages that use actionable, positive communication to create impact and encourage behavioral change in food waste efforts.

This study contributes to the literature on food waste message framing in social marketing by identifying the key groups leading conversations about food waste on X and analyzing how these groups frame their messages on the platform. It also examines the implications of these framing choices for addressing food waste and offers practical guidance for organizations, individuals, and other stakeholders seeking to design effective social marketing campaigns on social media. Finally, the study outlines directions for further research to deepen understanding of food waste communication and its impact.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - Exploring Food Waste Message Framing on X: A Social Network Analysis

Supplemental Material for Exploring Food Waste Message Framing on X: A Social Network Analysis by Ruth Areli García-León in Social Marketing Quarterly

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Ruth Areli García-León

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

Data availability on request.*

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author Biography

Dr. Ruth Areli García-León conducts research at the University of Hamburg and lectures at Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences in Germany. She has served as a full professor of marketing and communication and has held various managerial positions, including Director of the Department of Humanities and Director of the Department of Marketing and Communication at Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM) in Mexico. She has over 20 years of experience teaching communication, marketing, and management courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels at universities across Latin America, Europe, and South Asia. Her research focuses on the intersection of sustainable food consumption and virtual environments, as well as responsible management education. Her work has been published in books and peer-reviewed journals, including Management Review Quarterly, International Journal of Organizational Analysis, and Food, Culture and Society, and has been presented at major conferences, including the Association for Consumer Research and the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management.

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