Normalizing Human-Animal Power Relations Through Media: Zoo discourses in Turkey

Abstract

This study examines zoo discourses on media as a convenient site for probing into human-animal power relations. A form of critical discourse analysis is carried out in national daily news discourse focusing on how zoo discourses portray animals through lexical choices, grammatical structures, and discursive strategies of capitalism, hospitality, and conservation. These strategies overall operate to conceal the domination, oppression, and suffering of captive wild animals behind the benevolent image of the zoo institution promoting conservation, education, and recreation. Through language, animals are constructed, on a superficial level, as subjects who enjoy their lives on natural habitats with their families. Yet further analysis reveals a power abuse in which animals are objectified and commodified for an exclusively human agenda. The study concludes that through the naturalizing effect of discourses human dominance over wild animals are never questioned and the zoos grant animals an instrumental value rather than inherent value.

Portrayals of Animals in COVID-19 News Media

“…Tabloid newspapers, The Sun, Daily Mail, and The Mail on Sunday, emphasized the perceived value of human control over animals, citing the human-animal bond as beneficial to both parties, but in particular to the animal. Whether it be the elephants in Thailand suffering from the lack of touristic attention or the zoo animals feeling lost and lonely searching for the enrichment of zoo visitors, the intention was clear: wild animals were indebted to the human-animal bond for their health and wellbeing, findings consistent with Zengin (2019).…”

“…Typically, however, livestock are objectified for commodification, and the most common form of anthropomorphism occurs in children's stories where animals are depicted as living happy and contented lives on the farm (Rothgerber, 2020). Similarly, Zengin (2019) found media portrayals of zoo animals who were constructed through language as subjects who enjoy their lives in captivity despite their objectification for human entertainment. Thus, the media can be an effective promoter of cognitive dissonance, a psychological prerequisite for human domination over other animals (for more examples from the emerging field of Critical Animal Media Studies, see Almiron et al, 2016).…”