Purpose This paper aims to report the findings of a study into the automated text analysis of student feedback comments to assist in investigating a high volume of qualitative information at various levels in an Australian university. It includes the drawbacks and advantages of using selected applications and established lexicons. There has been an emphasis on the analysis of the statistical data collected using student surveys of learning and teaching, while the qualitative comments provided by students are often not systematically scrutinised. Student comments are important, as they provide a level of detail and insight that are imperative to quality assurance practices. Design/methodology/approach The paper outlines the process by which the institution researched, developed and implemented the automated analysis of student qualitative comments in surveys of units and teaching. Findings The findings indicated that there are great benefits in implementing this automated process, particularly in the analysis of evaluation data for units with large enrolments. The analysis improved efficiency in the interpretation of student comments. However, a degree of human intervention is still required in creating reports that are meaningful and relevant to the context. Originality/value This paper is unique in its examination of one institution’s journey in developing a process to support academics staff in interpreting and understanding student comments provided in surveys of units and teaching.

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This article examines one of the earliest forms of culinary television, the food/travel program. The vicarious travel opportunities such programs offer are explored to reveal the lifestyle aspirations of contemporary audiences. Food is an essential part of any culture and often relatively accessible, and therefore an easy way to experience other places and lives, however vicariously. In the close study of two contemporary Australian television programs, Food Safari and Luke Nguyen's Vietnam, this article examines media representations of cultures and cuisines, and constructions of otherness. The pivotal role the hosts of current food television play in the promotion of consumption is also explored. It finds that in combining the pleasures of food and travel, culinary programs provide a risk-free way of exploring foreignness, both locally and globally. Ideas of authenticity are key to these explorations. However, culinary television depictions of cultures and cuisines are complex and, at times, problematic in encouraging understanding primarily through consumption.

Ideas of the real are pervasive in contemporary food television programmes, reflecting a broader concern with the real that permeates current Western-centric popular cultural forms. This paper examines television representations of the real in the Australian culinary programme Gourmet Farmer, a series based on the life of host, Matthew Evans, as he creates a new identity as a Tasmanian farmer. It finds that the real is utilised as a powerful form of branding which guides viewers towards alternative forms of consumption, constructed as sustainable and ethical in contrast with non-discretionary consumption associated with mass food production systems. In investigating the television construction of a lifestyle based on artisanal food production and consumptions, this paper explores the aspirations of viewers and the meanings with which food is embedded in this text.