News Coverage on Animal Agriculture: Can Farmed Animals Serve as News Sources?
A comprehensive study delving into the news coverage of animal agriculture in mainstream U.S. media has recently been published in the Environmental Communication Journal, a top-tier, peer-reviewed journal. The article, titled "Provoking gut-level reactions: A study on journalistic framing during the 2020 meatpacking crisis," was authored by a new faculty member in the Department of Journalism and Communication at Utah State University, Dr. Michelle Rossi, and co-authored by Dr. Patrick Ferrucci, an associate professor at the journalism department at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The research aims to engage journalists in a conversation about amplifying discussions surrounding animal agriculture news coverage. The entry point for this conversation was the analysis of news produced during the meatpacking crisis of 2020, when COVID-19 forced slaughterhouses across the country to shut down. "When these facilities ceased operations, millions of farmed animals began piling up in barns with nowhere to go. Many farmers had to kill the animals themselves under obscure circumstances and handle their deceased bodies. This situation caused even more suffering to the animals within this fast-paced industry,” said Dr. Rossi, who joined Utah State in August. She holds a Ph.D. in Journalism from the University of Colorado Boulder and has 17 years of experience in the news media as a reporter and editor, as well as in the field of public relations.
To understand how U.S. mainstream news media reported on the crisis, the researchers investigated 126 news stories published in top-circulation newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Utilizing textual analysis guided by framing, the researchers sought to access the frames used in news stories reporting on the 2020 meatpacking crisis. Three frames emerged: "meat stockpiles as a journalistic absent referent," "meat workers as a speciesist construction within the news," and "critical infrastructure as a legitimizer narrative of oppression." According to Dr. Rossi, these frames reveal speciest coverage mechanisms perpetuating a cycle of violence and exploitation on farmed animals and human workers from meatpacking plants. "Through the lenses of intersectional ecofeminism and Critical Animal and Media Studies (CAMS), it is possible to delve deeper into the mechanisms that perpetuate violence against vulnerable groups, whether composed of humans or non-humans, more specifically, in this case, farmed animals. Social justice is now a concept that has been expanded to interspecies social justice,” Dr. Rossi said. "If oppression against nature is not taken into consideration in news coverage, then accuracy — a standard that journalism holds as its prime — is in check."
The study suggests that journalists need to connect with farmed animals when producing news on animal agriculture to enhance accuracy in the news narrative. Communication between species, as the article poses, is not only made through human language; it can be derived from vocalization, eye expression, body language, and our ability to discern discomfort in both humans and other animals. "It starts with our gut-level reactions," Dr. Rossi said.
For that reason, the article suggests that farmed animals should be considered as news sources for journalists covering animal agriculture. "Most journalists produce news on animal agriculture without considering farmed animals as stakeholders in the story,” Dr. Rossi explained. “Nonetheless, farmed animals are the most vital participants in the narrative; they spend their lives in horrific conditions, and their death has nothing of 'humane treatment.' Why not consider these animals as news sources? Journalists can observe their vocalizations, body language, and eye expressions and use that information to tell the story of animal agriculture."
One of the pioneers of ecofeminism and critical animal studies worldwide, Dr. Josephine Donovan, professor emerita of the University of Maine, acknowledged the contribution of the article to journalism studies. "I love the idea of animals as 'news sources,’” she said. “This would really shift the focus of attention toward what is typically ignored or deemed irrelevant in stories concerning animals." In collaboration with Carol J. Adams, Dr. Donovan has edited impactful books on the ethical treatment of animals, including "The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics" (2007), and produced solo works, such as "The Aesthetics of Care" (2016), in which the exploration of emotion, alongside reason, is advocated as a valid form of knowledge—a concept also employed in the article by the researchers.
"When emotion is validated as a form of knowledge, a world of possibilities opens up, particularly in accessing the stories of vulnerable groups such as farmed animals,” Dr. Rossi described. “Narratives emerge from the perspectives of these groups, rather than being solely framed by a logical and imposed standpoint assigned to them.”
Email the author: michelle.rossi@usu.edu
Official access to the article can be found here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17524032.2023.2280759
Additionally, Routledge provides 50 free downloads: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/TYEVIGSPTX4AXYJNWDKC/full?target=10.1080/17524032.2023.2280759