13pgs, With a focus on journalistic discourse, this paper argues for a re-envisioning of food-system communication that takes non-human animals into account as stakeholders in systems that commodify them. This is especially urgent in light of the global pandemic, which has laid bare the vulnerability to crisis inherent in animal-based food production. As a case study to illustrate the need for a just and non-human inclusive orientation to food-systems communication, the paper performs a qualitative rhetorical examination, of a series of articles in major U.S. news sources in May of 2020, a few months into the economic shutdown in the U.S. in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, millions of pigs were brutally killed on U.S. farms due to the impossibility of killing them in slaughterhouses overrun with COVID-19 outbreaks. The analysis finds that media reporting legitimated violence against pigs by framing narratives from industry perspectives, deflecting agency for violence away from farmers, presenting pigs as willing victims, masking violence through euphemism, objectifying pigs and ignoring their sentience, and uncritically propagating industry rhetoric about “humane” farming. Through these representations, it is argued, the media failed in their responsibility to present the viewpoints of all sentient beings affected by the crisis; in other words, all stakeholders. The methodology merges a textually- oriented approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA) with social critique informed by critical animal studies (CAS), and the essay concludes with recommendations for journalists and other food-system communicators, which should be possible to implement even given the current capitalist, industry-influenced media environment and the demonstrated ruthlessness of animal industries in silencing voices inimical to their profitmaking.
USA: Center for Food Integrity, Gladstone, Missouri.
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 201 Document Number: D11707
Notes:
2 pages., Online from publisher., Examines a period of meat shortages in stores - and headlines about pork and poultry farmers having to euthanize entire barns of animals. "Helping consumers understand the supply chain disruption and impacts may seem daunting, but the key is to keep it simple and engage on the shared values of safe food and a commitment to the highest standards of animal care."
National Pork Board (author) and Lessing-Flynn (author)
Format:
Online document
Publication Date:
2015
Published:
United States: Public Relations Society of America
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 8 Document Number: D10300
Notes:
3 pages., Via Silver Anvil Awards., Consumers have questions about how pigs are raised, and no one knows the answers better than pork producers themselves. Activist groups against pig farming have become increasingly active on social media, where the voices of pork producers were relatively silent. As the connection between pork producers and the food industry, the National Pork Board recognized the potential damage this could cause to the pork industry’s reputation. The #RealPigFarming campaign was born out of a need to engage producers in sharing stories from their farms, and contributing to online conversation about pork production. The results surpassed original goals by 2,730 percent.
