{"title":"Invisible Animals: Exploring Public Discourses to Understand the Contemporary Status of Donkeys in Britain","authors":"Cara Clancy, Emma McClaughlin, Fiona Cooke","doi":"10.1080/08927936.2023.2248762","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Established representations of donkeys in western literature and popular culture have often been negative, portraying the animals as stupid, inept, and bad tempered. To understand whether such representations are reflected in contemporary understandings of donkeys, we constructed a digitized body of texts (a corpus) from contemporary (public-facing) news articles and (public-produced) social media posts about donkeys, which we analyzed using quantitative and qualitative language analysis techniques drawn from corpus linguistics and discourse analysis. We supplemented this with focus groups conducted with members of the public to gather insights and reflections on key patterns of representation in two key news texts identified in the linguistic analysis. This combined approach, which is novel in its application to animal welfare topics, revealed that donkeys are most commonly represented as figures of entertainment, ridicule, and as victims of hardship and suffering (i.e., animals in need). We argue that such representations can sideline, obscure and “invisibilize” the real animals, leading to persistent misunderstandings and false conceptions about donkeys, which are further perpetuated through language use and can be difficult to disrupt and change. These findings have important implications for animal welfare, education programs, and public communication about donkeys. Finally, we highlight areas where incorrect, unhelpful, and potentially damaging representations can be challenged by those seeking to improve the contemporary status of donkeys.","PeriodicalId":50748,"journal":{"name":"Anthrozoos","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Anthrozoos","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08927936.2023.2248762","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"SOCIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Established representations of donkeys in western literature and popular culture have often been negative, portraying the animals as stupid, inept, and bad tempered. To understand whether such representations are reflected in contemporary understandings of donkeys, we constructed a digitized body of texts (a corpus) from contemporary (public-facing) news articles and (public-produced) social media posts about donkeys, which we analyzed using quantitative and qualitative language analysis techniques drawn from corpus linguistics and discourse analysis. We supplemented this with focus groups conducted with members of the public to gather insights and reflections on key patterns of representation in two key news texts identified in the linguistic analysis. This combined approach, which is novel in its application to animal welfare topics, revealed that donkeys are most commonly represented as figures of entertainment, ridicule, and as victims of hardship and suffering (i.e., animals in need). We argue that such representations can sideline, obscure and “invisibilize” the real animals, leading to persistent misunderstandings and false conceptions about donkeys, which are further perpetuated through language use and can be difficult to disrupt and change. These findings have important implications for animal welfare, education programs, and public communication about donkeys. Finally, we highlight areas where incorrect, unhelpful, and potentially damaging representations can be challenged by those seeking to improve the contemporary status of donkeys.
期刊介绍:
A vital forum for academic dialogue on human-animal relations, Anthrozoös is a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal that has enjoyed a distinguished history as a pioneer in the field since its launch in 1987. The key premise of Anthrozoös is to address the characteristics and consequences of interactions and relationships between people and non-human animals across areas as varied as anthropology, ethology, medicine, psychology, veterinary medicine and zoology. Articles therefore cover the full range of human–animal relations, from their treatment in the arts and humanities, through to behavioral, biological, social and health sciences.