University of Oxford

Tanja Schneider

Tanja Schneider is a Research Fellow in Science and Technology Studies at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS). Before joining the Institute Tanja completed her PhD at The University of Sydney, Australia, and worked as a Research Associate at the Science Studies Programme at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Tanja’s research focuses on marketing and advertising practices with a particular interest in their role in mobilising specific consumer subjectivities, drawing on consumption studies, Foucault and social studies of markets.

She is currently involved in two ongoing research projects:

a) A three year European wide project on the “Neuro-turn in European Social Sciences and the Humanities: Impacts of neurosciences on economics, marketing and philosophy” (NESSHI) funded by an ESRC “Open Research Area” grant (UK PI: Steve Woolgar, Oxford). Tanja undertakes an empirical investigation of neuromarketing through ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and documentary analysis with the objective to investigate the conditions of its emergence as well as the social implications of this new form of market and consumers research. For more information, see http://www.nesshi.eu

b) Tanja is also part of a research collaboration that has received an International Network Grant from The Leverhulme Trust (UK PI: David Marshall, Edinburgh). Over a period of one year, the network will conduct a comparative study on “Discursive Families: A comparison of magazine advertising in two countries”.  The research examines changes and continuities in visual displays and textual descriptions of the consuming family over a period of 60 years based on material sourced from Good Housekeeping (UK) and The Australian Women’s Weekly (AUS).

Her most recent publications address the marketing of health food and healthy eating practices, the governance of novel foods such as genetically modified and functional foods and the emergence of neuromarketing (see publications).

Tanja has designed and taught courses on the sociology of food and health, branding and consumer culture and is currently contributing tutor on the topic of child-focused marketing that forms part of the Oxford Economics and Management Undergraduate Marketing tutorial series.