Communication Faculty Publications

Embracing Humanimality: Deconstructing the Human/Animal Dichotomy

Carrie Packwood Freeman — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:34:24 PDT

Fishing For Animal Rights In The Cove: A Holistic Approach to Animal Advocacy Documentaries

Carrie Packwood Freeman — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 09:07:16 PST

The Oscar-winning 2009 documentary The Cove serves as a thrilling and poignant advocacy tool promoting activism to save free-roaming dolphins off the coast of Japan from kidnapping, enslavement in marine parks, and slaughter for meat. This essay evaluates the ethical and social justice implications of The Cove not just for dolphins but for the animal rights movement as a whole, particularly in terms of how it could challenge the ethicality of humans killing any nonhuman animals for food. Strategic media recommendations are made for how animal protection advocates could better deconstruct the human/animal dualism that is at the root of speciesist exploitation and how they should avoid privileging one charismatic species at the expense of other animals.

Branding Chinese Products: Between Nationalism and Transnationalism

Hongmei Li — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 08:23:09 PDT

This paper examines how Chinese advertisers include concepts of both nationalism and transnationalism in recent Chinese advertisements. I situate my research in the context of China’s search for modernity, and its historical and contemporary relations with the West. I argue that the marketing of nationalism and transnationalism represents contradictory concepts of China as a nation and a state. It also symbolizes China’s deep anxiety and ambivalence toward its own tradition and global capitalism. On one hand, Chinese advertisers sell nationalism by celebrating Chinese history, contemporary events, and Chinese lineage. On the other hand, Chinese advertisers use Western symbols and values to elevate the status of advertised products. Chinese advertisers also sell a hybrid form of nationalism and transnationalism in an attempt to reconcile ‘Chineseness’ with global capitalism. To some extent, nationalism and transnationalism emerge as competing sites for ideas about China as a nation and a state in a globalized world characterized by unequal power relations between China and the West.

This Little Piggy Went to Press: The American News Media's Construction of Animals in Agriculture

Carrie Packwood Freeman — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:53:00 PST

This textual analysis examines the representations of farmed animals in national print and broadcast news discourse in over 100 stories published from 2000-2003. Findings show these American news media largely support the speciesist status quo by favoring elite viewpoints and failing to provide balance. Although exceptions are provided, news media often objectify nonhuman animals discursively through: 1) commodification, 2) failure to acknowledge their emotional perspectives, and 3) failure to describe them as inherently-valuable individuals.

A Greater Means to the Greater Good: Ethical Guidelines to Meet Social Movement Organization Advocacy Challenges

Carrie Packwood Freeman — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:52:59 PST

Existing public relations ethics literature often proves inadequate when applied to social movement campaigns, considering the special communication challenges activists face as marginalized moral visionaries in a commercial public sphere. The communications of counter-hegemonic movements is distinct enough from corporate, nonprofit, and governmental organizations to warrant its own ethical guidelines. The unique communication guidelines most relevant to social movement organizations include promoting asymmetrical advocacy to a greater extent than is required for more powerful organizations and building flexibility into the TARES principles to privilege social responsibility over respect for audience values in activist campaigns serving as ideological critique.

Framing Animal Rights in the "Go Veg" Campaigns of U.S. Animal Rights Organizations

Carrie Packwood Freeman — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:52:58 PST

How much do animal rights activists talk about animal rights when they attempt to persuade America's meat-lovers to stop eating nonhuman-animals? This study serves as the basis for a unique evaluation and categorization of problems and solutions as framed by five major U.S. animal rights organizations in their vegan/food campaigns. Findings reveal organizations framed problems as: cruelty and suffering; commodification; harm to humans and the environment; and needless killing. To solve problems, largely blamed on factory farming, activists asked consumers to become "vegetarian" (meaning vegan) or reduce animal product consumption, some requesting "humane"reforms. While certain messages supported animal rights, promoting veganism and respect for animals' subject status, many frames used animal welfare ideology to achieve rights solutions, conservatively avoiding a direct challenge to the dominant human/animal dualism. In support of ideological authenticity, I recommend vegan campaigns emphasize justice, respect, life, freedom, environmental responsibility, and a shared animality.

Meat's Place on the Campaign Menu: How U.S. Environmental Discourse Negotiates Vegetarianism

Carrie Packwood Freeman — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:52:58 PST

Given the impact of America’s food choices, particularly animal-based foods, on life-sustaining systems, to what extent is the environmental movement making meat-based diets an issue? This research analyzes websites of 15 U.S. environmental advocacy organizations (EOs) to examine how they negotiate the question of animal versus plant-based diets and propose solutions for food producers and consumers. EOs proposed that industrial agriculture and commercial fishing/aquaculture severely limit destructive practices to more sustainably meet consumer demand for animal products. EOs offered consumers choices, including: 1) replacement of much industrial food with local, organic, and/or sustainable animal or plant foods, 2) reduction of animal products, and, to a lesser degree, 3) vegetarianism. To consistently promote justice for all animals, the author recommends environmental discourse more explicitly critique animal agriculture/fishing as a primary source of environmental problems, consider food needs not just preferences, and promote fundamental changes toward a plant-based, largely organic diet.

Giving Voice to the "Voiceless:" Incorporating Nonhuman Animal Perspectives as Journalistic Sources

Carrie Packwood Freeman et al. — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:52:56 PST

As part of journalism's commitment to truth and justice by providing a diversity of relevant points of view, journalists have an obligation to provide the perspective of nonhuman animals in everyday stories that influence the animals' and our lives. This essay provides justification and guidance on why and how this can be accomplished, recommending that, when writing about nonhuman animals or issues, journalists should: 1) observe, listen to, and communicate with animals and convey this information to audiences via detailed descriptions and audiovisual media, 2) interpret nonhuman animal behavior and communication to provide context and meaning, and 3) incorporate the animals’ stories and perspectives, and consider what is in their best interest. To fairly balance animal-industry sources and the anthropocentric biases that are traditionally inherent in news requires that journalists select less objectifying language and more appropriate human sources without a vested interest in how animals are used.

Anonymous Sources: A Utilitarian Exploration of Their Justification and Guidelines for Limited Use

Matt J. Duffy et al. — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:52:54 PST

This article critically examines the practice of unnamed sourcing in journalism. A literature review highlights arguments in favor of and against their use. Then, the authors examine some common examples of anonymous sourcing using the lens of utilitarianism, the ethical model commonly used to justify the practice. We find that few uses of unnamed sourcing can be justified when weighed against diminished credibility and threats to fair, transparent reporting. The authors then suggest specific guidelines for journalists that, if followed, would curb many of the pedestrian uses of unnamed sourcing but still allow for the practice in specific circumstances.

A Big Fat Indie Success Story? Press Discourses Surrounding the Making and Marketing of a "Hollywood" Movie

Alisa Perren — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:27:55 PDT

In this article, I dissect three primary claims made in mainstream publications about My Big Fat Greek Wedding. First, by examining the film's production, distribution, and exhibition history, I complicate assertions that the film can be labeled "the most successful independent of all time." Second, I challenge the assumption that films such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding are rarely made anymore by Hollywood. I suggest that such arguments are based on narrow definitions of Hollywood and its product. Third, I problematize the declarations that My Big Fat Greek Wedditig represents a triumph in innovative "grassroots" marketing tactics and appealing to groups from the "bottom up." In place of such a perspective, I maintain that the tactics employed in selling the film are representative of long-standing tactics employed by niche marketers.

Hollywood

Alisa Perren et al. — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:27:54 PDT

Any effort to assess, analyze, or even describe “Hollywood” inevitably begins with a definitional dilemma. The term Hollywood refers to an actual place, of course—a community north of Los Angeles that emerged, nearly a century ago, as a primary base of operations for the burgeoning American film industry. But the industry involved far more than the Hollywood environs even then, and as it continued to develop, the meanings associated with the term Hollywood became increasingly complex and multivalent.

Sex, Lies and Marketing: Miramax and the Development of the 'Quality Indie' Blockbuster

Alisa Perren — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:27:53 PDT

The August 1989 release of sex, lies, and videotape by Miramax marked a turning point in American independent cinema. In fact, the film should be perceived as central to the development of New Hollywood aesthetics, economics, and structure. sex, lies, and videotape ushered in the era of the “indi blockbusters—films that, on a smaller scale, replicate the exploitation marketinig and box-office performance of the major studio high-concept event pictures. On a cost-to-earning ration, Steven Soderbergh’s creation –with its $1.1 million dollar budget and $24 million plus in North America box office—was a better investment than Batman, which—at an investment of $50 million-returned $250 million in domestic box office. These figures begin to suggest how sex, lies, and videotape helped to set the standard for low-budget, niche-based distribution in the 90s and to lay the groundwork for a bifurcation within the entertainment industry.