¹ New York University, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health, New York, NY
² Strategic Communication ResourcesSM, New York, NY
³ Sustainable Table, New York, NY

Corresponding Author:
Diane Hatz, Founder/Director, Sustainable Table, 215 Lexington Avenue, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10016. E-mail: diane@sustainabletable.org

Suggested Citation: Williams A; Zraik D; Schiavo R; Hatz D. Raising Awareness of Sustainable Food Issues and Building Community via the Integrated Use of New Media with other Communication Approaches. Cases in Public Health Communication & Marketing. 2008; 2:159-177. Available from: www.casesjournal.org/volume2.

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Abstract

Today's agricultural practices largely rely on the use of pesticides, factory farming, antibiotics, and large transportation systems. In order to limit the health, environmental and community impact of such practices, Sustainable Table, a program of the non-profit GRACE, seeks to educate the public on food-related issues, while creating a sense of community through food. Through the use of Internet-based communications - including new and, more recently, social media - Sustainable Table has been able to educate consumers about the problems associated with factory farming, spark discussion in communities about related issues and offer potential solutions. The strategic use of Internet-based communications has been integrated with activities from other areas of communication (including interpersonal communications, community mobilization, and media relations) and has allowed Sustainable Table to reach millions of consumers and key influentials. This case study will examine Sustainable Table's communication campaign - with particular emphasis on the organization's use of the Internet. In doing so, it will explore some of the campaign's key elements, features, results and lessons learned.

Introduction: About Sustainable Table and GRACE

Sustainable Table aims to inform and educate consumers and relevant communities about the serious implications of factory farming on public health, socio-economic conditions of local communities, and the environment. Sustainable Table was started in 2003 by GRACE, a New York City based non-profit, which "works with research, policy, consumer and grassroots organizations to promote and help develop communitybased production and consumption of food, water and energy. By creating innovative awareness campaigns, GRACE advocates for economically and environmentally sound alternatives to practices that are harmful to the ecosystem and public health."¹

Sustainable Table more specifically promotes farming methods that support human and environmental health, humane treatment of animals, and local farming communities, as well as addresses health issues such as antibiotic resistance that may result from the overuse of antibiotic administration in animals.

From the beginning, Sustainable Table has made use of new media, which are defined here as those media that are based on the use of digital technologies, such as the Internet, computer games, digital television and mobile devices, as well as "the remaking of more traditional media forms to adopt and adapt to new media technologies."² Elements of the campaign include several online tools and websites, such as the www. sustainabletable.org, www.eatwellguide. org, and www.themeatrix.com, which are complemented by community outreach and mobilization efforts as well as mass media communications. Sustainable Table has been successful in expanding its original audience of young, internet-savvy and socially conscious groups to include other age groups and populations - including U.S. parents. ³ Via its three different websites (www. sustainabletable.org, www.eatwellguide. org, and www.themeatrix.com) and internetbased tools, Sustainable Table reached over 6.6 million unique visitors from February 2006 - when results started to be tracked via Netracker, an online web statistics service - to April 2008.³

The Issues Behind Food Sustainability and Sustainable Table

Sustainable farming is designed to minimize the use of antibiotics, minimally impact the environment, provide humane conditions for animals, and promote and enhance local farming communities.¹ Unlike industrial-sized factory farms, which are also knows as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), sustainable farmers only administer antibiotics if an animal is sick (or not at all), thus greatly reducing the risk of antibiotic-resistant strains of disease.¹ With sustainable farming, the minimal use of pesticides and limited use of chemical fertilizers ensures that the soil is left as uncontaminated as possible, thus protecting water supplies and soil conditions, as part of other conservation practices. Figure 1 shows a dairy cow living in a sustainable environment, made possible by sustainable farming.

The active involvement of local farms in community mobilization - also through initiatives and support by Sustainable Table - has created in many communities a critical mass of people who purchase a growing percentage of their goods from local farms, as well as partake in civic involvement on these issues. However, since the reemergence of sustainability in recent years, many Americans appear to either fully support sustainable food or lack the confidence to purchase them.⁴ Depending on community members' beliefs, attitudes, purchasing confidence, past buying experiences, and several other factors, the individual may or may not be influenced to buy sustainable food.⁴ With those who may not feel compelled to purchase sustainable food, the role of educators and mentors, which are fulfilled by organizations such as Sustainable Table, are key to promoting and communicating about the sustainable food movement and continuing to engage additional communities and audiences on key issues.⁴

Over the past few decades, there has been an increasing shift from local family-owned farms to corporation-led factory farms. Below is a brief description of some of the key issues related to widespread CAFO practices. All of these issues provide a rationale for the sustainable food movement as well as motivate Sustainable Table's mission and activities.

Antibiotic Overuse/Resistance
The overuse of antibiotics on factory farms can create resistant forms of bacteria, which can make treating human diseases much more difficult. The antibiotics used in farming aims to kill bacteria. However in practice some of the bacteria survive, which can cause them to become resistant to antibiotics. This makes treatment of bacterial infections more and more difficult. In addition, the antibiotic resistant bacteria can spread from animals to humans. The daily use of low dose antibiotics has been made necessary by the structure of factory farms where animals are confined to small and unsanitary spaces, which creates stressful environments and causes the animals to become prone to illness. Furthermore, low doses of antibiotics are also given to animals to make them grow faster.⁵

According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 14,000 Americans die each year from antibiotic resistant strains of disease.^1,6 Additionally, 25-75% of all antibiotics used on factory farms could pass through animals into the environment, which possibly could be one of sources of pharmaceuticals recently found in water supplies.^1,7 Not only are factory farming practices harmful to animals, they also pose a great public health risk to consumers. As more diseases become resistant to antibiotics, the threat to humans greatly increases. The public health threat is so serious that the American Public Health Association issued a recommendation in 2003 against construction of factory farms to local and state officials.⁸ According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2 million patients in American hospitals each year are infected during their hospital stays. Of these 90,000 die; in 70 percent of the cases, the bacteria that kill them are resistant to at least one commonly used antibiotic.⁹

Environmental Pollution
Factory farming has a negative impact on the environment in multiple ways. For example, 1,000 hogs create 6 million pounds of waste each year. Improper storage and excess waste on factory farms leads to pollution of air, water and soil.^1,10 In the United States, the most common form of water pollution has been due to fertilizer runoff, where fertilizer (which includes chemicals like nitrogen and phosphorous) mixes with and runs into other surrounding water supplies. ^1,11 Moreover, a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations states that livestock production contributes more to global warming than transportation emissions.¹²

Impact on Local Communities and Farms
Prior to industrial-sized factory farms, family-owned farms were a staple of American life. Local, family-owned farms are important because of their sustainable land stewardship practices, as well as their contribution to the economic health of their communities. America is losing farmers at an alarming rate of 330 a week, when developers or factory farms buy up their land.¹ Additionally, remaining farmers are aging and not being replaced at the same rate by younger farmers.^1,13 Factory farms harm communities by not buying goods locally,^1,14 reducing property values in communities around confined-animal farms, ^1,15,16 and contributing to negative changes in local ecosystems and water supplies.^1,17

Overview of Sustainable Table's Communication Campaign

Sustainable Table's key communication objectives are to increase recognition of key issues related to factory farming practices and raise awareness of their impact among the general public and other key stakeholders. Sustainable Table's efforts focus on generating consumer awareness and building community by providing information and resources, as well as engaging local farms, community members, consumers, and organizations in various activities and events.

Communication efforts rely on a mixture of interpersonal, new media and mass media channels and are primarily targeted to consumers (the program's primary audience). Initially, Sustainable Table's focused on reaching consumers directly through the Internet in order to increase public demand for sustainable food.

As Sustainable Table's popularity has increased, its focus is gradually entering a second phase in which they plan to reach out more systematically to public health professionals, healthcare providers, educators, and other key stakeholders, who all are important secondary audiences because of their influence on attitudes and habits of different consumer age groups. This shift is occurring due to an increase in consumers' interest in personal health, as well as public health professionals' increasing attention to sustainable food. To date, educators, and dieticians across the US - and more recently internationally - have already been using Sustainable Table's online resources and information for special events and courses.

The use of new media is a dominant element of Sustainable Table's campaign. The program officially launched on November 3, 2003, with Sustainable Table's website, www.sustainabletable.org, an educational tool for consumers and communities. Along with the main website, two complementary websites and projects were also launched: The Meatrix - www.themeatrix.com, which originally featured a 4 1/2-minute animated movie, the first in The Meatrix's series, on the issues related to factory farming; and the Eat Well Guide, www.eatwellguide. org, an online directory of sustainable food stores, restaurants, small farms and other outlets in the US and Canada. More recently, other internet-based tools include a blog (The Daily Table) as well as an online newsletter (The Pasture Post). All of these resources are described and analyzed in detail in the following sections.

Table 1 summarizes number of page views for each of the above Internet-based applications and tools. As previously mentioned, all different websites and internet tools developed by Sustainable Table and listed above have reached over 6.6 million unique visitors from Feb. 2006 to April 20083 and generated over 57.5 million page views (including unique and recurring visitors).³

These new media initiatives have been combined with local community outreach - such as the Eat Well Guided Tour of America - and mass media relations. In an attempt to build community through food, Sustainable Table has been conscious of the importance of an integrated approach to communication interventions - which usually includes multiple action areas across different platforms, such as Internet-based communications, community mobilization and mass media communications. Such an integrated approach is increasingly recognized as an important success factor as it mirrors how communication actually takes place in people's everyday lives.^18,19 The integration of different communication areas and channels also enables communication efforts to address and tap into existing community resources and needs.^18,19 Within this context, Sustainable Table has reached out to local communities and farms by touring them and focusing on the success stories of sustainable food. Such stories have been told both at community events (as part of the Sustainable Table's Eat Well Guided Tour of America) as well as via the programs' efforts to reach out to print and online media. Following is a detailed description of each of the campaign's key elements and available results.

The Meatrix
Sustainable Table's foray into new media began largely with "The Meatrix." In 2001, Sustainable Table applied for a grant to produce a Flash movie. A Flash movie is an animation movie played in Flash Player - a computer application that works with popular Web browsers - which is responsible for much of the animation, advertisements, and video components found on the Web.²⁰ As a result of the grant, Sustainable Table teamed up with Free Range Studios to produce The Meatrix, a series of short videos about the dangers of factory farming. These videos were posted on a dedicated website (www.themeatrix.com) and linked to Sustainable Table's other sites as well as to thousands of other blogs and websites whose organizations were motivated to link to The Meatrix via a comprehensive promotion effort described later in this section. Since its initial online debut, The Meatrix has been also posted on YouTube as well as distributed in DVD format.

The communication objectives of The Meatrix are: (a) to educate consumers about the impact of factory farming on the four main issues we previously highlighted: environmental pollution, communities, health (including antibiotic use/resistance), and animal welfare and (b) to direct viewers to resources and tools on Sustainable Table's website that may help people change attitudes and behaviors in relation to sustainable food. By using a cartoon format (with Leo the pig and Moopheus the cow as the main characters), The Meatrix encourages consumers and other relevant communities to get involved in the "resistance" movement and to adopt healthier and sustainable food consumption practices. A first step in joining the "resistance" movement - as Moopheus calls it - is to visit other sections of Sustainable Table's website and its key resources.

The Meatrix became a widely acclaimed and multi-award winning Internet hit.^21,22 As shown in Table 1, over 4.6 million unique visitors came to its website in the last 2 years. Moreover, an estimated 20 million people viewed The Meatrix online between its release in 2003 and April 2008.³ This estimate includes views on The Meatrix website, YouTube, and offline viewing such as participation in national and international film festivals and DVD distribution. According to hundreds of e-mails and notes received by Sustainable Table, much of this growth is attributed to emails forwarded by primary audiences to friends and family. ³ The Meatrix is responsible for most of Sustainable Table's growth and visibility among the general public. It was the winner of the Holland Animation 2004 Film Festival; the Educational category of Media That Matters Film Festival; the Film for Thought category of the Environmental Media Association Awards as well as the Webby Award for Nonprofit Charitable Organizations; the Web Marketing Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Website Development; the Special Glynwood Innovative Communications Award, and many others.²²

The Meatrix's impact has been documented among older U.S. children. In 2007, Pork Checkoff, an activist group led by the National Pork Board, conducted four focus groups and an online survey of 350 children in Des Moines, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Raleigh N.C., between the ages of 9 and 14.²³ This survey was aimed at assessing the impact and influence of food activist groups on children. Survey's findings showed that while only 7 percent of survey's participants had heard of or visited The Meatrix website, more than three-quarters had viewed The Meatrix video.²³ After viewing The Meatrix (either online or via its DVD format), nearly two-thirds of the children stated that their opinions and meat eating habits had been changed.²³ The report also concluded that the Meatrix was helping create awareness of animal care and meat production in young children across America.²³

In some cases, the Meatrix seems to have served also as a bridge to the Eat Well Guide among key audiences.³ In the past two years, 11.7% (97,180) of the Eat Well Guide's visitors have been directed to this resource on sustainable food stores, restaurants and farms by clicking through The Meatrix.³ This may suggest that The Meatrix is not only raising awareness of key issues related to sustainable food, but is also prompting a significant percentage of its viewers to look for additional resources, which may potentially lead to future behavioral changes.

As part of The Meatrix's distribution plan, Sustainable Table utilized a variety of online and offline channels, including participation in film festivals, blast e-mails to organizations in relevant fields, merchandising, and social media networks. Among other things, they developed, posted on www.meatrix.com and e-mailed to other organizations several web graphics of The Meatrix's key characters to encourage others to link the site to their websites or blogs.³ These graphics were also incorporated in holiday greetings cards, which were sent to hundreds of public figures and celebrities together with The Meatrix DVD, and other items such as magnets, pins, tee-shirts, and coffee mugs promoting the video.³ More recently, a special MySpace page has been created for Moopheus (the main cow character of The Meatrix).³

In addition to a very comprehensive distribution and promotion plan, which relies both on traditional and new media, some of the key features that may have contributed to The Meatrix's success as well as to its many awards, are the simplicity of its message; the animation format that removes viewers from thinking about grotesque scenes of animal cruelty, thus helping them focus on key issues and messages; and its use of graphic devices such as a bullet point banner that acts as a reminder of key messages on the bottom of the video screen.

The Eat Well Guide
As with other health or social issues, raising awareness of key contributing factors is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for behavioral change. To complement the awareness-raising efforts of The Meatrix, Sustainable Table also launched the Eat Well Guide (www.eatwellguide.org) to provide a resource to help facilitate change among its primary target audience of consumers. The Eat Well Guide is a comprehensive list of restaurants, stores, local farms, and other outlets in the US and Canada where consumers can purchase sustainable food. The Eat Well Guide's format allows viewers to easily find sustainable goods by typing in their zip code. Listings are then broken down by category (restaurants, butcher, bakery, etc.) to assist consumers in finding the goods they would like to purchase. By providing consumers a resource on where to buy locally produced sustainable food, the guide aims to lessen people's dependence on factory farms, as well as to shift their eating and purchasing habits towards food produced via sustainable agriculture and farming.

The listing is maintained by several of Sustainable Table's Eat Well Guide interns and staff members who check directly with businesses to confirm if they offer sustainable food products. Additionally, consumers themselves are able to submit listings for inclusion to the Eat Well Guide, which are then reviewed for acceptance. Currently, there are nearly 10,000 businesses nationwide that are listed with the Eat Well Guide.²⁴

In the last two years, 565,553 unique visitors have viewed the guide, with a majority of them navigating to the site directly rather than being directed from another website. Between February 2006 and April 2008, 53.3% of all viewers went directly to www.eatwellguide.org, while 11.7% were referred to this guide through The Meatrix and 6.1% clicked through from www. sustainabletable.org.3 Additionally, as of April 2008, the Eat Well Guide marked its highest monthly visitor rate at 59,922 visits since it's debut in 2003.3 Within this same month, this guide also reached its highest amount of new visitors at 40,496.³ Table 2 shows a break down of the US zip codes that are most searched for and reveals that a large majority of users are searching for sustainable food in neighborhoods of large urban areas. For example, in April 2008, 60% of users searched for sustainable food outlets in the Manhattan and Brooklyn boroughs of New York City.³ Other common zip codes searches include other neighborhoods of New York, as well as Ithaca, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco.³

SustainableTable.org
A third complementary element of Sustainable Table's online strategy is the program's main website, www.sustainabletable.org, which supplies consumers and other key audiences with issue-specific information on sustainable food and factory farming. One of the best aspects of www.sustainabletable. org is that it allows consumers to conduct searches and make decisions based upon their own findings. The website provides indepth information on environmental issues, health issues, community issues, as well as a long list of other sustainability-related concerns. With over 1.3 million unique visitors in the last two years, (in total, over 143 million hits), the website is a core element of Sustainable Table's online presence.

Some of the website's key features include the existence of audience-specific sections (e.g., Media Lounge, Shop Sustainable, Sustainable Kitchen, Education and Schools), which may help create a bridge among different audiences; and a variety of downloadable tools that people can print out for personal use or to help spread the word in their local communities (these are found not only in the Tools You Can Use section but also in other sections throughout the website). For example, visitors can download a series of pictures and illustrations - which are available through Flickr - and use them free of charge on their own web pages by just providing a credit to Sustainable Table and linking back to their site. This is part of Sustainable Table's core strategy for their exchange link program. The site also contains links to both The Meatrix , the Eat Well Guide, and to other relevant links, references and information. In 2005, Sustainable Table also launched a blog and an online newsletter that are posted on its website.

The Daily Table and The Pasture Post
Sustainable Table also utilizes a blog called The Daily Table and a monthly electronic newsletter called The Pasture Post to keep consumers updated on various issues as well as to create a social network to continue building the sustainable food community and receive feedback from their main audiences. The blog is one of Sustainable Table's first attempts to expand their use of the Internet to include social media, which are defined as a set of internet tools that enable shared community experiences, both online and in person.²⁵

The blog covers issues such as health care, restaurants and chefs who use sustainable products, organizational updates and related events. The Daily Table blog also can be bookmarked on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpac e, Reddit and Digg. This feature allows readers to share Daily Table posts on their own social networks, and take action to spread Sustainable Table's message.¹ It has approximately 2,800 monthly readers, with readership growing. While this figure represents a respectable number for a blog, it is not close to the 50,000-70,000 people who visit their website each month. Based on click through rates, only 15% of visitors to the www.sustainabletable. org site click through to read the blog.³

Several strategies are being implemented to increase readership. Guest bloggers are currently being added to provide external expertise and fresh insight on all topics in an attempt to increase exposure and readership. This appears to be an increasingly used online strategy for professional blogs. According to problogger.net, guest bloggers or contributing bloggers provide blogs with more recognition and have the added benefit of allowing exposure to the guest bloggers. ²⁶ Sustainable Table is hoping its renewed emphasis on the blog will increase its subscriptions to a level around 4,500 people a month in the remaining months of 2008.³ Preliminary results for March and April 2008 - in which the Sustainable Table counted a total of 20,000 unique blog visitors - suggest that this renewed emphasis on the blog may be starting to contribute to the kinds of results the program is seeking for 2008. While there are no quantitative analyses supporting the following observation, it is possible to speculate that the recent Eat Well Guided Tour of America may have also somewhat contributed to increased awareness of Sustainable Table's online tools (including the blog) among some of its intended audiences.

However, an analysis of the last 6 months of posting on The Daily Table, (September 2007 to April 2008), shows that two blog postings generated the most number of online reactions, as measured by the number of comments received. Those posts from January 16 and January 25, 2008,¹ received 5 comments a piece and both called for consumers to take action in support of sustainability as well as referred them to specific resources, tools, or local groups. The January 16 posting encouraged consumers to utilize the National Resources Defense Council's "Eat Local" tool.¹ This tool allows consumers to discover resources available in their communities that sell local items during each season. A call to action also went out to consumers on January 25 to stop purchasing bottled water and use the tap water from their homes.¹ Both posts are examples of how the blog attracts readers when offering up a call to take action in their eating habits and communities.

As an additional element in support of the above observation, "Weekly Pick" one of the most heavily blogged categories (with 55 total blogs posted since the blog's inception in March of 2005)1 received little or no comments, perhaps because of its merely informational nature.

The comments posted on the blog show that users are sharing their opinion primarily in response to "action-steps" kinds of messages that invite them to get mobilized, take action and make use of existing resources. While the number of comments on blog postings is not the only parameter in evaluating blog-related outcomes, these kinds of observations may be critical in designing future content for the blog and defining its role as part of other online activities.

To date, Sustainable Table has used its blog primarily as a marketing and communication tool, to generate coverage by other blogs and online channels of its news and key messages. However, blogs can also create a community of people who interact and share opinions and feel mobilized by the cause or topic area the blog is attempting to cover. Such function theoretically distinguishes blogs from more traditional online resources, which fulfill primarily an informational purpose (which in the case of Sustainable Table is a task already accomplished via the Eat Well Guide and many of the other tools on www.sustainabletable.org.) Still, according to a 2006 study, "in most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action."²⁷ Understanding and implementing key features that may be audience- and/ or issue-specific and have the potential to increase the percentage of active users is an important endeavor for most organizations. Sustainable Table is currently exploring other potential functions for its blog in an attempt to expand and diversify it from its other online tools as well as make sure they continue to meet their audiences' needs and wants.

Moreover, it is also important to keep in mind that while blogs are the "buzzword" of our time, fewer bloggers focus on large themes such as those promoted by Sustainable Table, with a vast majority of Internet users currently using blogs to share personal experiences and practical knowledge and keep in touch with friends and family.²⁸ In others words, most Internet users are still experimenting with the use of blogs, which in general terms may still account for lower number of subscribers in comparison with users who visit websites or much more familiar Internet applications.

Another key online tool is the Sustainable Table's newsletter, The Pasture Post. The organization uses this tool to reach out to consumers and its other key audiences on a regular basis and to maintain a consistent level of interest on sustainable food issues among its subscribers. The newsletter is a way to let interested consumers know what's new on the website and at Sustainable Table. The newsletter brings information to them, rather than wait for them to come to the site. In the past, the newsletter has covered areas that span from alternative fuels, to food prices, to films and sustainable projects, as well as organizational information.

As of March 2008, The Pasture Post Newsletter counted nearly 45,360 subscribers.³ In March and April 2008, 19.8% and 17.3% of subscribers respectively opened the newsletter. ³ With the newsletter being opened 6,177 times in March and 5,181 times in April, the program anticipates that the rates will increase in the near future due to additional newsletter submissions, renewed promotion efforts and attempts to conduct an analysis of favorite topics.³

Promoting Community Action

As previously mentioned, Sustainable Table's communication's campaign also involves community outreach, including initiatives or tools targeted to schools, classrooms and training courses across the United States. The "Teacher Resources" section on the website allows educators to gain ideas and materials for presentation in the classroom about factory farming. In addition to providing resources, Sustainable Table held a contest for educators to engage them in developing lesson plans around the materials from the website. The two winning lesson plans are available for other educators to use, and reflect the needs and format highlighted by this important audience.

While Sustainable Table does not have a school outreach program, they do see students and teachers requesting information about The Meatrix and Sustainable Table for classroom use. Creating a connection to the importance of sustainable food practices early on may help the program's future growth and allow them to explore and consolidate relationships that have developed across different generations.

As another example of its community outreach and mobilization efforts, Sustainable Table's key officers traveled across the country for 40 days in the summer of 2007 via their Eat Well Guided Tour of America. The objective of this tour was to create awareness in communities about sustainability issues, as well as to continue building communities around locally grown food and to feature the good stories that can be told about sustainability. The Eat Well Guided Tour was also a way for Sustainable Table to reach out into communities and establish itself as one of the premiere food programs in existence. The tour made 25 stops from California to New York City and included the Pie Across America program.^1,3 Local residents were encouraged to bake pies with local goods and bring them to the tour stops.

With over 200 pies tasted, Sustainable Table extended its reach to many communities. The tour received coverage from national media such as National Public Radio, The New York Times and Newsday as well as several blogs, magazines and key local media in each location they visited.^1,3 Community events were also promoted via Sustainable Table's numerous online tools. The integration with new media and mass media communications contributed to the success of the tour, which is again another example of the importance of an integrated approach that relies on multiple action areas and channels in communicating with different audiences.

Lessons Learned and Discussion

From the Sustainable Table experience, there are several important lessons that can be learned for future communications and marketing campaigns. Many of them have been already discussed in detail throughout the article and apply to specific online media and tools previously described. Such lessons include the importance of a comprehensive new media promotion plan that includes both online and offline strategies and channels (see The Meatrix section for additional details); the need for an increased emphasis on blog analyses to assess what kind of audience- and issue-specific topics organizations should leverage to increase participation and number of postings by blog users; the positive impact of guest bloggers as well as online and - potentially - offline promotion activities in increasing blog readership; and the importance of developing graphics, photo galleries and other tools to encourage other organizations to link to one's websites and media.

In addition to the above observations, there are other key learnings, which may more generally apply to the use of new media. The first of these general lessons is related to the importance of taking risks in experimenting with new types of media. This may require investing in adequate training, resources and capacity building before dedicating substantial program funds to the use of new media. Pilot programs (or dedicated fundraising efforts and funds, such as the grant Sustainable Table initially received to develop The Meatrix) could help smaller organizations experiment with new media as they grow comfortable with them. Sustainable Table took risks in working directly in new media and found a niche that worked well for them. A second lesson is to make sure that intended audiences have adequate tools, resources and avenues to take action on the issues addressed by the program or organization. While quantitative results on awareness or behavioral outcomes are not yet available for many elements of this program, the preliminary results discussed in many of the previous sections point to the importance of the campaign's core elements in supporting changes in consumer awareness and habits. Overall, as shown by a recent online survey, the majority of Sustainable Table's online audience prefers action-oriented topics such as buying and eating local (85.0% of survey's participants), sustainable food (83.3%) and emphasis on health issues (63.0%).^1,3,24 Many of them also perceive as "very important" encouraging others to take positive action.¹

A third lesson is to plan ahead for success and, whenever possible, use a variety of media, formats and channels to disseminate the program's messages and distribute its core tools. Sustainable Table did not even consider there might be requests for DVD copies of The Meatrix, so the organization was unprepared when hundreds of requests flooded in the first couple of months (and still continue to this day). In 2003, converting Flash to DVD was tricky, so it took six months to develop the DVD and start distributing it. To date, thousands of DVDs have been distributed to teachers, students, educators and interested consumers all over the world. Most of the DVD copies have been requested by teachers, academic instructors, dieticians and other professionals who wanted to use the movie in their courses or special events because they did not have online access during their presentations. As previously mentioned, this confirms the importance of using a variety of communication approaches, channels and media that meets intended audiences' preferences and needs, and is best suited to determine the changes in awareness, attitudes, and behavior being sought by the program.

Moving Forward

In the next few years, Sustainable Table will maintain its primary focus on raising awareness of sustainable food issues and educating consumers. In addition to continuing to use new media as a key element of their outreach program, the organization will be expanding on its partnership-building efforts with other groups with similar goals and target audiences.

In an attempt to facilitate the implementation of its core messages and activities at a local and grassroots level, Sustainable Table is finalizing the development of their Educational Kit, which is to be completed in 2008. This online downloadable kit will supply teachers, students, community members and organizations with video, speeches, presentations and other media to use in their communities. Online or inperson training programs on how to use the kit are being explored in order to motivate and facilitate use of the kit among intended audiences and ultimately expand the reach of Sustainable Table's core messages and initiatives.

As previously mentioned, the Sustainable table is also placing a renewed emphasis on its blog, The Daily Table, via the inclusion of guest bloggers, additional promotion efforts and other activities that aim to encourage increased readership. A look at March and April 2008 statistics, which showed a total number of 20,000 unique visitors over this two-month period, suggest that these renewed efforts may start to come to fruition.

Sustainable Table is also exploring the possibility of creating a documentary based around the Eat Well Guided Tour of America and a variety of other online and offline tools that would further their mission, help them broaden their audience base and create new connections in communities.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Dawn Brighid of Sustainable Table for her invaluable help with questions and other needs related to this article. With the exception of Table 1, all figures and illustrations in this article have been used as a courtesy of Sustainable Table.

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12. Mathews, Christopher. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). "Livestock Major Threat to Environment: Remedies Urgently Needed". FAO Newsroom. November 29, 2006.
13. Hatz, Diane. Sustainable Table. "Farm Aid, Why Family Farmers Need Help". Available at sustainabletable.org. Accessed March 1, 2008.
14. Flore, Jan L., Hodne, Carol J., et al. "Social and Community Impacts, in Iowa Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations Air Quality Study: Final Report". Environmental Health Sciences Research Center, University of Iowa, 2003: 148.
15. Herriges, Joseph A., et al. "Living with Hogs in Iowa: The Impact of Livestock Facilities on Rural Residential Property Values, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development". Iowa State University. Ames, Iowa: 2003: 20.
16. Hamed, Mubarak, et al. "The Impacts of Animal Feeding Operations on Rural Land Values". Paper presented to the Saline County Steering Committee, Columbia, Missouri. May 1999.
17. Ibid 52.
18. Schiavo, R. Health Communication: From Theory to Practice, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2007.
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20. PCMagazine, PCMAG.com Encyclopedia. Available at www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_ term/0,2542,t=Flash&i=43259,00.asp, Accessed April 7, 2008.
21. "The Meatrix: Film Festivals and Awards." Available at www.themeatrix.com/about/filmfests. html#awards Accessed May 8, 2008.
22. The Meatrix. "Critical Acclaim: The Meatrix". Available at www.themeatrix.com/acclaim/ critical_acclaim_m1.html. Accessed April 17, 2008.
23. The National Pork Board. "Checkoff Tracks Activist Group's Influence on Kids". Available at www.pork.org/NewsAndInformation/WebFeaturePage2.aspx?Id=325. Accessed April 1, 2008.
24. Brighid, D. Sustainable Table. Personal E-mail Communications: March-April 2008.
25. "A Definition of Social Media." Available at technologyintranslation.blockwork. org/2007/04/a_social_media_.html. Accessed April 8, 2008.
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27. Nielsen, J. "Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute". Alertbox, October 9, 2006. Available at www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html Accessed April 14, 2008.
28. Lenhart, A. and Fox S. "Bloggers. A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers." Pew Internet & American Life Project. July 19, 2006.

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Author Information

Andrew Williams and Diana Zraik are both 2009 Masters of Public Health Candidates in the Community Public Health MPH Program at New York University, Steinhardt School, Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health. Renata Schiavo, PhD, MA is a Senior Health Communications Consultant and the Founder and Principal of Strategic Communications Resources. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Health at New York University, Steinhardt School, Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health. Diane Hatz is the Founder and Director of Sustainable Table and the Executive Producer of The Meatrix.