Carrie P. Freeman

Communication Strategies for Animal Rights

Framing Farming

With The Human Animal Earthling Identity Carrie P. Freeman asks us to reconsider the devastating division we have created between the human and animal conditions, leading to mass exploitation, injustice, and extinction. As a remedy, Freeman believes social movements should collectively foster a cultural shift in human identity away from an egoistic anthropocentrism (human-centered outlook) and toward a universal altruism (species-centered ethic), so people may begin to see themselves more broadly as “human animal earthlings.” To formulate the basis for this identity shift, Freeman examines overlapping values (supporting life, fairness, responsibility, and unity) that are common in global rights declarations and in the current campaign messages of sixteen global social movement organizations that work on human/civil rights, nonhuman animal protection, and/or environmental issues, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the World Wildlife Federation, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the Nature Conservancy, the Rainforest Action Network, and Greenpeace. She also interviews the leaders of these advocacy groups to gain their insights on how human and nonhuman protection causes can become allies by engaging common opponents and activating shared values and goals on issues such as the climate crisis, enslavement, extinction, pollution, inequality, destructive farming and fishing, and threats to democracy. Freeman’s analysis of activist discourse considers ethical ideologies on behalf of social justice, animal rights, and environmentalism, using animal rights’ respect for sentient individuals as a bridge connecting human rights to a more holistic valuing of species and ecological systems. Ultimately, Freeman uses her findings to recommend a set of universal values around which all social movements’ campaign messages can collectively cultivate respectful relations between “human animal earthlings,” fellow sentient beings, and the natural world we share.

Shared Values Unifying Human Rights, Animal Rights, and Environmental Movements

The Human Animal Earthling Identity

To what extent should animal rights activists promote animal rights when attempting to persuade meat-lovers to stop eating animals? Contributing to a classic social movement framing debate, Freeman examines the animal rights movement’s struggles over whether to construct farming campaign messages based more on utility (emphasizing animal welfare, reform and reduction, and human self-interest) or ideology (emphasizing animal rights and abolition). Freeman prioritizes the latter, “ideological authenticity,” to promote a needed transformation in worldviews and human animal identity, not just behaviors. This would mean framing “go veg” messages not only around compassion, but also around principles of ecology, liberty, and justice, convincing people “it’s not fair to farm anyone”. Through a unique frame analysis of vegan campaign materials (from websites, to videos, to bumper stickers) at five prominent U.S. animal rights organizations, and interviews with their leaders, including Ingrid Newkirk and Gene Baur, Freeman answers questions, such as: How is the movement defining core problems and solutions regarding animal farming and fishing? To which values are activists appealing? Why have movement leaders made these visual and rhetorical strategic choices – such as deciding between appealing to human self-interest, environmentalism, or altruism? To what extent is the animal rights movement actually challenging speciesist discrimination and the human/animal dualism? Appealing to both scholars and activists, Framing Farming distinctively offers practical strategic guidance while remaining grounded in animal ethics and communication theory. It not only describes what 21st century animal rights campaigns are communicating, it also prescribes recommendations for what they should communicate to remain culturally resonant while promoting needed long-term social transformation away from using animals as resources.

Framing Farming: Communication Strategies for Animal Rights

Matthew Cole

Núria Almiron

This book aims to put the speciesism debate and the treatment of non-human animals on the agenda of critical media studies and to put media studies on the agenda of animal ethics researchers. Contributors examine the convergence of media and animal ethics from theoretical, philosophical, discursive, social constructionist, and political economic perspectives. The book is divided into three sections: foundations, representation, and responsibility, outlining the different disciplinary approaches’ application to media studies and covering how non-human animals, and the relationship between humans and non-humans, are represented by the mass media, concluding with suggestions for how the media, as a major producer of cultural norms and values related to non-human animals and how we treat them, might improve such representations.

Communication for Nonhuman Animal Advocacy

Critical Animal and Media Studies

With The Human Animal Earthling Identity Carrie P. Freeman asks us to reconsider the devastating division we have created between the human and animal conditions, leading to mass exploitation, injustice, and extinction. As a remedy, Freeman believes social movements should collectively foster a cultural shift in human identity away from an egoistic anthropocentrism (human-centered outlook) and toward a universal altruism (species-centered ethic), so people may begin to see themselves more broadly as ?human animal earthlings.? To formulate the basis for this identity shift, Freeman examines overlapping values (supporting life, fairness, responsibility, and unity) that are common in global rights declarations and in the current campaign messages of sixteen global social movement organizations that work on human/civil rights, nonhuman animal protection, and/or environmental issues, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the World Wildlife Federation, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the Nature Conservancy, the Rainforest Action Network, and Greenpeace. She also interviews the leaders of these advocacy groups to gain their insights on how human and nonhuman protection causes can become allies by engaging common opponents and activating shared values and goals on issues such as the climate crisis, enslavement, extinction, pollution, inequality, destructive farming and fishing, and threats to democracy. Freeman's analysis of activist discourse considers ethical ideologies on behalf of social justice, animal rights, and environmentalism, using animal rights' respect for sentient individuals as a bridge connecting human rights to a more holistic valuing of species and ecological systems. Ultimately, Freeman uses her findings to recommend a set of universal values around which all social movements' campaign messages can collectively cultivate respectful relations between ?human animal earthlings,? fellow sentient beings, and the natural world we share.

Carrie P. Freeman

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