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When media claims violent humans are acting "like animals" they're wrong
Nonhuman animals (animals) appear in all sorts of media each and every day. However, they're often misrepresented as individuals or objects in detached, impersonal, and objectified ways from our points of view, and not as who they truly are. The ways in which they're portrayed often makes them more aggressive than they truly are (as when people who commit violent acts are called "animals"), and often they're portrayed as "others" which contributes to distancing them from humans. This can have impacts on how people view them and come to treat them.1 Just today an essay titled "Trump blames Putin, Obama for 'Animal Assad,' tweets 'big price' after reports of Syrian chemical attack" appeared on CNN news.
Because of these errors in representation, often done out of ignorance or to be "cute," I was thrilled to learn of the University of Oregon's Dr. Debra Merskin's new book titled Seeing Species: Re-presentations of Animals in Media & Popular Culture. I was pleased that she was able to answer a few questions about her most important work. Our interview went as follows.
Why did you write Seeing Species?
After more than two decades of teaching and research about the impact of mass media and popular culture on human beings who are marginalized, it became increasingly clear to me that animals other than humans are similarly discriminated against. Unlike most humans, however, animals cannot speak for themselves, at least not in ways we have learned to understand. They can neither give nor withhold consent for what happens to them. But this does not mean they do not communicate. As a media studies scholar, I saw the parallels and impact of portrayals on groups who do not control their own image and wanted to write about it. Thus, just like people of color, those with different physical or mental abilities, or with other markers of difference, animals are stereotyped either positively or negatively, in media content. Those with the power, usually not of the represented group, create the portrayals which influence attitudes, behaviors, public policy, and law. I was influenced as well by your article with Carrie Freeman and Sarah Bexell in which journalism ethics were challenged to include animals amongst those for whom one provides voice ("Giving Voice to the 'Voiceless': Incorporating Nonhuman Animal Perspectives As Journalistic Sources"). In visual media, one-dimensional portrayals such as all wolves are evil; polar bears are cuddly; all pit bull dogs are vicious significantly impact animal lives and ours. [MB: And sometimes the references to nonhumans are simply inane and meaningless. As an example, a few days ago when I was watching a basketball game between the Boston Celtics and the Toronto Raptors, one of the commentators made the absurd and idiotic comment that one of the players was "a pitbull...a pitbull with glitter." Some people also argue that we aren't really the "voice for the voiceless" because nonhumans do talk to us in their own ways. In her essay called "You Aren't a 'Voice for the Voiceless'," Amanda Houdeschell writes, "Let us not claim to be the voices of the voiceless but to amplify the voices of the silenced."]
How does your book follow up on your past work?
Exposure to media content about a person or animal follows the same theory that predicts if we only know someone different from ourselves (whether it be on the basis of skin color, nose shape, or species) is via the media, we will come to think of that individual in only a limited way. I use the theory of intersectionality to argue to which species one belongs is a predictor of treatment—whether that is discrimination, marginalization, or exclusion from moral consideration.
What are some of your major messages?
Making appearances in advertisements, television programs, movies, books, internet memes, and art, symbolic animals do tremendous work for us selling goods, services, ideas, and as stand‐ins for our interests and ideas. Yet, does knowing animals only symbolically impact their lived experiences? Research about children’s most important first friends routinely points to animals but thus far has ignored, these important others. I examine this as a foundation for the development of empathy. In addition, the book explores several questions:
-- Where does thinking of other beings in a detached, impersonal, objectified way come from?
-- Do the mass media contribute to this distancing?
-- When did humans first think about animals as other Others?
The book’s main themes include examining the persistence of the human/animal divide, parallels in the treatment of Otherized human beings and animals, and the role of media in either liberating or limiting real animals lives. Ecopsychology locates and identifies the connections between how we re‐present animals and the impact on their lived experiences in terms of distancing, generating a false sense of intimacy, and stereotyping. Representations of animals are discussed in terms of the role the media do or do not play in perpetuating status quo beliefs about them and their relationship to and with us. Through a series of case studies about animals such as polar bears, prairie dogs, cats (large and small), elephants, and ravens the book applies media theories to the deconstruction of communication that usually has nothing to do with real animals but is entirely about humans.
Who is your intended audience?
Of course, like any academic, I hope people outside the academy will find the book interesting. However, the primary audience is students, undergraduate, and graduate, in media, animal, environmental studies, and philosophy courses.
What are some of your current and future projects?
I continue to study representations of animals by species in different forms of media. At present, I am working on the effects of film and television shows on the adoption and often abandonment of animals as a media effect. Furthermore, the website I, along with my colleague Dr. Carrie Freeman created, animalsandmedia.org, is an ongoing project designed to connect working media professionals with an ethics of representation by offering a style guide, similar to that used when seeking ethical and factual representations of human minorities.
Is there anything else you'd like to tell readers?
It is important when considering the treatment of animals other than humans, and making comparisons with human beings, that this isn’t an exercise in “the oppression Olympics” as Pattrice Jones calls it. Rather compassion, care, and concern for all beings, in my view, is a fundamental obligation. One does not become a species traitor by advocating for the moral inclusion of others. Rather, an intersectional approach posits that all systems of oppression must be confronted, all social and cultural institutions interrogated, including the mass media and its ancillary serves such as advertising and public relations. What benefits any one of us benefits us all.
Thank you, Debra, for taking the time to answer my questions. I hope your important book will enjoy a broad global audience made up of academics and others who are interested in seeing nonhuman animals being represented as who they truly are. Not only is it misleading to misrepresent nonhumans, but, as you point out, there are major ethical issues as well. By correcting the ways in which animals are portrayed in media, Seeing Species will be a real game-changer for the wide variety of animals who need all the help they get in an increasingly human-dominated world.
Notes:
1For more discussion please see "Animals in media: Righting the wrongs," "Animals in the Media: Guidelines for Accurate Representation," "Animals Are Not Warmongers: An Important Media Corrective," "Do Less Harm: Ants and a Simple New Years Resolution" in which an NPR report referred to cutting off an ant's legs as an ant "makeover," "'Are You with the Right Mate?' The Media's Misuse of Chimpanzees," and links therein. Please also see Carrie Packwood Freeman and Dr. Merskin's website called "Animals and Media: A Style Guide For Giving Voice to the Voiceless" where you'll find guidelines for how animals are represented in journalism, advertising, public relations, and entertainment and also tips for the general public and extremely valuable resources including Online Resources and a Glossary of Animal-Related Terms. The style guidelines were created for media practitioners in the professions of journalism, entertainment media, advertising, and public relations to offer concrete guidance for how to cover and represent nonhuman animals in a fair, honest, and respectful manner in accordance with professional ethical principles. Also relevant to discussions of how animals are represented in media are these two research essays, "Specific Image Characteristics Influence Attitudes about Chimpanzee Conservation and Use as Pets" and "Use of 'Entertainment' Chimpanzees in Commercials Distorts Public Perception Regarding Their Conservation Status" and a recent essays on the brutal killing of bunnies in New Zealand ("It's a Ghastly Time to Be a Bunny in New Zealand" and "Bye bye Easter bunnies."
References
Carrie Packwood Freeman, Marc Bekoff, and Sarah Bexell. Giving Voice to the 'Voiceless': Incorporating Nonhuman Animal Perspectives As Journalistic Sources. Journalism Studies 12(5), 590-607, 2011.
