“Four-Legged Terror” or “Ultimate New Yorker”?: Urban Rat Videos and Their Media Reception

IF 0.6 4区农林科学 Q4 SOCIOLOGY

Society & Animals Pub Date : 2021-01-08 DOI:10.1163/15685306-BJA10030

Gabriela Jarzebowska

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Online videos of subway rats in New York and their media reception are examined in order to observe how they reflect sociocultural attitudes towards these non-human animals. It is argued that regardless of whether a particular video was purposefully staged as a hoax or whether its creators were convinced they were filming “true life,” virtually all these materials produce a deeply stereotypical vision of these animals and provide interpretations of their behaviors that conform to deep-seated cultural scripts and prejudices. Contemporary videos contribute to a long-enduring myth about rats that is deeply embedded in Western culture. They complement this myth with a new one that establishes rats as the ultimate urbanites who are granted individuality and extensively anthropomorphized.

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“四脚恐怖”还是“终极纽约客”？：城市老鼠视频及其媒体接受

为了观察它们如何反映对这些非人类动物的社会文化态度，研究了纽约地铁老鼠的在线视频及其媒体接收情况。有人认为，无论某个特定的视频是故意上演的骗局，还是其创作者确信他们在拍摄“真实生活”，几乎所有这些材料都对这些动物产生了深刻的刻板印象，并对它们的行为做出了符合根深蒂固的文化脚本和偏见的解释。当代视频促成了一个长期存在的老鼠神话，这个神话深深植根于西方文化中。他们用一个新的神话来补充这个神话，将老鼠确立为被赋予个性并被广泛拟人化的终极都市人。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Society & Animals 社会科学-兽医学

CiteScore

1.40

自引率

12.50%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Society & Animals publishes studies that describe and analyze our experiences of non-human animals from the perspective of various disciplines within both the Social Sciences (e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science) and the Humanities (e.g., history, literary criticism). The journal specifically deals with subjects such as human-animal interactions in various settings (animal cruelty, the therapeutic uses of animals), the applied uses of animals (research, education, medicine and agriculture), the use of animals in popular culture (e.g. dog-fighting, circus, animal companion, animal research), attitudes toward animals as affected by different socializing agencies and strategies, representations of animals in literature, the history of the domestication of animals, the politics of animal welfare, and the constitution of the animal rights movement.