Global Warming, Health and the Animal Industry. A Critical Discourse Analysis of Advertisements from the Animal Industry in EU after the Reports by WHO, FAO and IPCC

(1)

Media and Communication Studies: Culture, Collaborative Media and Creative Industries K3

Master Thesis Spring/2016

Global warming, health and the

animal industry

A critical discourse analysis of advertisements from the

animal industry in EU after the reports by WHO, FAO and

IPCC

(2)

ii

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Michael Krona, who has meticulously guided me throughout my thesis with encouragement. I

thank you wholeheartedly for supporting my thematic and making this possible.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Sam, my partner, for supporting and encouraging me. I am very thankful for your patience, reflections and comprehension!

I would like to thank the professors of the program for the continuous support during this academic year.

I would like to thank my mother, Maria Helena, for supporting me in my choices and encouraging me.

Finally, I thank my friends and family that were directly or indirectly present in this process.

(3)

iii

ABSTRACT

IPCC, WHO and FAO have recently published reports connecting the animal industry with Global warming, cancer and 70% of modern diseases. In fact, IPCC (2014)

indicated that the greatest potential for reducing emissions is placed on the consumer’s level. For this context, grounded in concepts of the Foucauldian Discourse

Analysis and the Compositional Analysis (Rose, 2001) this study analyzed a series of advertisements issued in the period after the reports (2013-2015). The analysis was guided by three central questions: (1) Which linguistic and visual approaches, as well

as their organization and strategies applied in the discourse, is the Animal Industry using in the construction of their advertisements and how they react to this moment

of crises? (2) Considering Barthes´ approach of food as symbols containing a communicational construction, what are the meanings built around animal products

understood from the perspective of discourse? (3) How is the Animal Industry positioning themselves towards audiences and culture and what functions are they

giving to themselves in society? Following a political theoretical framework, the proposition that the animal commodification is an ideology affirmed in western societies will be discussed. Advertisements from seven enterprises of the Animal Industry in EU will be used, selected for having leading positions in their sectors (meat

and dairy). Among the results, it was verified that the relation toward human interaction is the major enunciator in the advertisements. The following lines of

enunciation were identified: example and empathy; imperative discourses; tradition. The enunciations of meat have emotional basis; while the constructions around dairy

focuses on the western representation of archaic nature (Haraway, 1989). The denotative qualities of the foods where very little considered. The political and ethical questions around the animal products were absent. This study focuses on the necessity

of a political and critical approach of the marketing strategies of the Animal Industry.

(4)

iv I dedicate this work to all the vegans, vegetarians, animal activists. All of you that are not silent in the face of the animal ideology. To all the nonhuman animals.

(5)

v

“There was a man here (…) He was first To say that animal food should not be eaten, And learned as he was, men did not always Believe him when he preached, “Forbear, O mortals, To spoil your bodies with such impious food” - Ovid, Metamorphosis

(6)

2 1. Introduction

Meat and dairy consumption have a major impact on the climate. They are responsible for more gas emissions than all of thetransport sector together, that is to say: all road vehicles, ships, trains and airplanes.1_{The international organizations FAO}

(2013), IPCC (2014) and WHO (2015) have recently advised against the consumption and maintenance of the animal industry due to its catastrophic environmental footprint and damages to human health. FAO (2013) alerted that over 70% of modern human diseases originate from consumption of animal products, and the World Health Organization has declared processed meat as carcinogenic (listed in the same group as tobacco) and red meat as possibly carcinogenic. Far from ethical, the same industry is responsible for a record rate of slave labor in Brazil, an important meat exporter (ONG Repórter Brasil, 2011).

Despite those discussions around the Animal Industry, very little change has happened. The analysis of the Think Tank Chatham House (2014) concludes that there´s a lack of attention to the issue and no efforts to reduce consumption of these products by governments and environmental groups. In fact, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2014) indicated that the greatest potential for reducing emissions of gases is placed on the consumers. The report found that a dietary change and reduction of food waste has far better results (8.55GT CO2) than interventions by the producer side would have (4.6Gt CO2).

The Animal Industry certainly has a position against those acclamations. Advertisement is not recessed. In fact, meat and dairy are linked to cultural and political meanings. In “Towards a psychosocialogy of contemporary food consumption”, Barthes describes unities of food as structural communications symbols that correspond to certain meanings. Historically, western culture is connected with the commodification of animals through the construction of its symbolism by social institutions and media (Benton-Short and Short, 1999; Joy, 2011). Melanie Joy (2011) argues that animal

1_{FAO (2013) presents the amount of the emissions by the livestock sector 7.1 GtCO2 e per annum. The}

(8)

3

products consumption lies at ideological concepts, as they are not necessary as we think. That ideology, named by the scholar as carnism, is supported by culture, language and society. Further exploration of the cultural constructions on animal products can be found in Carol Adams “The Sexual Politics of meat”. Adams explores the connection between the patriarchal society and animal commodification. Meat is charged with male symbolism, that is to say: virility, power and potency in several material, ideological and symbolic aspects of our society.

My aim with this research is to explore how the strategy of marketing in the advertisements of the Animal Industry in Europe has supported the animal

commodification ideology after the reports by FAO, WHO and IPCC. This is a research

purely interested in the enunciations of the producer of the Animal Industry. This thesis will present the discourse analyses of different advertisings from the Animal Industry in EU, focusing on three codependent questions:

- Which linguistic and visual approaches, as well as their organization

and strategies applied in the discourse, is the Animal Industry using in the construction of their advertisements, considering that they are in this moment of crises, that is to say, after the reports described?

- Considering Barthes´ approach of food as symbols containing a

communicational construction, what are the meanings built around animal products understood from the perspective of discourse?

- How is the Animal Industry positioning themselves towards audiences

and culture and what functions are they giving to themselves in

society? 2

These questions will be explored along the analyses and concluded generally in the chapter 7. This study will be divided in 7 sections. The second one will introduce the methodology and data applied in this study. The third one will discuss the literature around the subject. The fifth and the sixth will provide analysis of

2_{These questions do not aim to stabilize a comparison between the advertisement of animal products}

before and after the reports, but to analyze the operative strategies of this discursive in this crises moment.

(9)

4

advertisements divided in two subjects: meat and dairy. The seventh chapter will bring a discussion of the overall results. The last chapter will bring a conclusion.

2. Methodology

The methodologies of this study will ground on the Foucauldian Analysis of Discourse and the Compositional Analysis method of images described by Gillian Rose (2001).

The Foucauldian Discourse Analyses is a political perspective of the discourse within its social and historical place. This approach is interested in the relations between the discourse, the subject and the ideology. For Foucault the discourse is:

“the general enunciative system that governs a group of verbal performances – a system that is not alone in governing it, since it also obeys, and in accordance with its other dimensions, logical, linguistic and psychological systems.” (1971:116)

The discourse is formed by heterogeneous enunciations that can be recognized within the social body, constituting a subjective practice that reinforces or recreates a built meaning, or, as defined Foucault, the enunciative object. That is to say, the discourses do not exist purely in their individuality; but in a certain place and time within a enunciative chain that reflects over the same questions. Every discourse denotes these central interests that are founded in the social and historical moments, controlled by the hegemonic forces, supported by the discursive memory. Although the discourses are approximated with the overall discursive practices, Foucault notices that they are individual in their formations (1989). As the discursive is a product of its time and place, this thesis will reflect on the conditions of production of the enunciations, that is, after the reports described.

(10)

5

That approach connects the analysis of discourse in the social studies as it states the practice of analyzing the enunciates in the social-historic place and inside the ideologies permeated in their production. Foucauldian analysis systematically evaluates a discourse individually, allowing the analyzes of an object in a broad perspective providing a qualitative result. Critiques of individual pieces are applied by inference to extract aspects present in a broad perspective, in order to identify the control of the ideology of power. It implies the study of the enunciation, their linguistic constructions, their subject and their place of apparition, the determination of its conditions of existence and the functions that the discourse tries to exclude, as the discourse is the articulation between ideology/subject/history/enunciations. Furthermore, this approach critically explores the forms of appropriation, exclusion and limitation in the text, investigating how it formed, why, and the strategies employed in it. The discourse analysis attempts to stabilize the general discursive practices, determining the ideologies of the dominant and hegemonic representations basing on the principle of repetition and dispersion of the discourse.

In order to propose a general understanding of the enunciative chain of the animal industry, Foucault´s method complies with the requirements of stabilizing general perspectives: the discourse is not the individual product of the subject, but is derived from a system of relations that regulate the existence or absence of enunciations that creates, reproduce, crosses, argues and reinstate a enunciative object. (1969). The approaches of the object are reorganized according to their conditions of existence stating the values of that moment. That way, the discourse is a toll of the

power, in the sense that power is not a central structure, but is the enunciative

organizations of truth (1969).

Moreover, Foucault´s method lacks of specific techniques to analyze video and image enunciations. To enrich this analysis, it will employ it in a combination with a visual method of study. Gillian Rose´s method Compositional analysis provides a strong focus on composition of still and moving image, also paying attention to its production, as resumed by Rose:

(11)

6

(…) pays close attention to the structure of its story as well as to its visual representation. (…) compositional interpretation pays some attention to the production of images, especially their technologies, but is mostly concerned with the image itself in its compositional modality. (…) This method demands careful attention to the image (2001: 33).

This method is designed around what the scholar defines as the “good eye”, and it is concerned with the plastic constitution of images, that is to say: how the elements of an image or a moving image form a narrative and produce a certain meaning?

Under the light of these two methodological backgrounds, this research will be grounded on the next questions:

(1) What is the narrative process of the advertisements, that is, how does the information is presented and chained?3

(2) Through the analysis of the narrative process, what is the meaning being produced in relation to the animal product?

(3) What is the relation stabilized by the subject to their consumers?

Considering that this work comprehends a short period of time, it will not be possible to determine the Foucauldian discursive constellation, that is to say, an extensive study that understands enunciations on a deeper level (1971). This work will center in a small part inside the enunciative chain, but it will contain the enunciative practices (that is to say, the narrative structure that produces a meaning) in a small perspective and proportionate the possibility to analyze its relations.

For the performance effect of this study, I must consider that I am aware of my bias as a researcher. In the efforts of a discursive analysis experiment, this study will reflect around the direct meaning produced in their narrative justified by the

3_{Rose describe the narrative process by these simple questions: “What is the story that a movie tells?}

What happens to its characters?” The description of how the narrative works here will be essential to understand and expose the enunciations formed in the discourse.

(12)

7

description and critique reflection around the narrative constitution of each add, supported by the questions formulated. The discourse analysis by Foucault is based on

assumptions of the position of the text in its society, moment in history and the subject that constructed that text (1969). The description of the narrative of each add will be a

part of the exercise of reflection as it will state the constitution of the enunciations and justify then in their own existence. With that, I will stabilize a series of enunciates that, within their individualities, will reflect the rules of formation of the discourse when seen in perspective.

This analysis approach will be performed directly articulated in the notion of inclusion of the discourse inside the mobilizations around the carnism ideology described by Joy (2011); that is to say, this dominant social and institutional conjuncture that stabilized animals as commodities. The meat and dairy consumption are unscripted around the European popular culture, something that will be explored in the chapter 3, bringing literature background, justifying its approach as ideological, and also providing the concept of nature and animals and a brief introduction to the animal studies. This chapter is important as the consumption of animal products is today viewed as natural, something that needs to be reflected. The chapters 5 and 6 will provide, in the light of the presented concepts, the qualitative discursive analyses of the advertisements selected.

This work will analyze advertisements from producers of the Animal Industry issued in EU. The analyzes will be performed in two categories according to their main product: Meat and Dairy. These were selected for being the two animal products most consumed in Europe that are related to the reports. As the discourse is repetitive on the same historical moments and places, and the animal commodification culture will be justified as the same in western countries in the literature review, this sample of ads will obey the same rules of the discourse being irrelevant to the final enunciation their audiences or format, as it will be discussed in the next paragraph (Foucault, 1969). The industries selected were: McDonalds´, KFC, Charal and INTERBEV under the section Meat; Nestlé, Arla and Danone, under the section Dairy. These enterprises were selected for having coverage in EU and leading positions in their sectors.

(13)

8

In these selection of advertisements, like in all the discursive spaces, different discourses cross, complement and interact, forming the discursive ideologies. The advertisements were issued in different platforms and they are aimed at different audiences: their selection is positive because we are interested in the discourse of the

producer in Europe in a broad perspective, as the discursive adapts itself in their

individuality producing the same enunciations (Foucault, 1969). That way, a wide range of ads will positively enhance the central enunciations, as proposed; and their specific characteristics is irrelevant as this study is proposed to explore the central enunciations of the Animal Industry as a whole. Reflections around the audiences, the format of the ads and the cultural context, under the light of Foucault, will represent the condition of appearance and form of the discourse, justifying its individualities; but further analysis of that will not be necessary as this research aims as producing a description of the

enunciative chain. That is to say: under the condition of appearance, these adds will be

shaped by these contemporary conditions where it is clear that consumption of animal products is associated with our biggest environmental problem and health issues. The wide selection of adds guarantees the focus on the enunciations produced in a European perspective inside the animal consumption, rather than producing a study around the central companies or countries, something that would produce an unfocused study when considering the political institution of this research. That is to say, this research considers animal consumption as ideological (something that will be explored in the literature review) and the Foucauldian perspective makes this study interested in a range perspective of this ideology within advertisement.

The proposition of this research is to infer practices that will repeat in the individual enunciations, reflecting a pattern of enunciations of the subject, that is to say, the Animal Industry. The analytical chapter will end with a reflection on the regularities within the discourse of that industry by working with the series of enunciations, considering the individual condition of each enunciation. By doing so, identify interdiscursive practices. I assume, thus, the necessity of a development of a critical approach around the power of the animal industry, applied through discursive strategies that influence the choices of the consumers.

(14)

(15)

10 3. Literature review

Theoretical backgrounds

a. Marketing discourse, persuasion and power

It is through eating meat that most of us interact with animals, and through the act of eating that “the justification for the entire meat production process” takes place (Adams, 1990:130). Our representation of animals is molded in our culture through animal products. In our industrialized society, marketing takes the responsibility to engage us to eat meat. But what is the place of advertisement? Roland Barthes argues that advertising uses discourse practices through the full exploration of meanings:

“in advertising the signification of the image is undoubtedly intentional; the signifieds of the advertising message are formed a priori by certain attributes of the product and these signifieds have to be transmitted as clearly as possible. If the image contains signs, we can be sure that in advertising these signs are full, formed with a view to the optimum reading: the advertising image is frank, or at least emphatic. (1964: 152)”.

Advertisement is a construction supported by discursive practices will full exploration of meaning with the intention of seducing the consumer, that is to say, through a persuasive communication (Roiz, 1996). The process of persuasion is defined by Brown (1978) as the influence over a subject to the other with the pure use of the

discourse. The message will be considered persuasive when the receipted message has

the intention to modify or create new meanings, even if there is the possibility of the message do not persuade. But what does give the credibility to the persuader? The credibility of a persuader depends on the argumentation capacity and the degree of social prestige and technical dominium around the subject (Brown, 1978). That argumentative capacity is characterized by the introduction of the subject into their audience’s reality, and the persuader credibility strengths when the discourse has elements shared between the subject and the receptor. The persuasive communication is more effective when it is positive and adequate: the use of cultural concepts or models

(16)

11

of our society are factors used to promote identification to the receptor and therefore credibility to the subject (Léon, 1992; Luhman, 1993). The publicity supports itself in the global collective because the audiences will recognize the collective imaginary: audiences are being induced to consume in the name of the “culture” and the replacement of the product in society (Baudrillard, 2004). That way, the advertisement makes the audiences believe that a specific product was designed for them (Baudrillard, 2004) by producing reconnaissance, something that spreads the message: the individual itself, when persuaded, will persuade others (Roiz, 1996).

In fact, the convergence of the production and consummation of advertisements in all human spheres is an expression of the proliferation of all aspects of our everyday life: work and leisure, the local and the global, as media´s content have a species of commercialization of experiences (Deuze, 2011; Potter, 2011). Culture, in fact, subsides itself in the signifiers that change or reinstate meanings, in a process where the audiences will process, memorize, and re-use the messages, in a continuous repetition. (Lippmann, 1992). Confirming that the media works reinstating cultural concepts in the principle of resemblance to the audience´s world, Potter observed that (2011) the mediatic messages actually increases the weight and magnitude of already built concepts: that means, being a part of in the enunciative and semantic systems of repetition (Foucault, 1972; Barthes, 1972), media´s content reinstates existing values.

In conclusion, the credibility of the persuader is associated with their argumentative capacity, something supported by their capacity to insert themselves in their audiences by showing similarities. This study is interested in the message disseminated, reflecting around the enunciations produced by the persuader; that way, it is important to understand the cultural concepts with animal products, as the credibility of the persuader will be conducted by them. As such, the existing research

session is of great importance, as it explicates the cultural concepts around the

consumption of animal products in our western societies, something that, as discussed, will support advertisement.

(17)

12 b. The semantics of animal products: the construction of

meaning around nature

One does not need to dive in to the deepest layers of European values to reveal the place of meat and dairy in that culture. These products are present in our national dishes, our day-by-day meals, representing our cultures and pasts. What would France be without cheese or fois gras? Italy and their Bolognese? Each one of the Germanic countries have their own national sausage. It is needless to identify the country behind Fish and Chips. The relation between animal products and European culture is evident: they play an important role in culture and society.

Food choices and habits are cultural, political and economic manifestations. Barthes (1961) argues that food is a complex subject of the western system of beliefs. He defends that unities of food cares a combination of different

meanings: food has polysemic signifiers, fully meaningful only when associated in their

cultural context. In the article “Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption” Barthes determines that our food choices are related with perceptions and values that are created through publicity and culture: food is a subject contextualized into an ideology that includes ranking practices. As he states:

“‘When he (modern consumer) buys an item of food, consumes it, or services it, modern man does not manipulate a simple object in a purely transitive fashion; this item of foods sums up and transmits a situation; it constitutes an information; it signifies’.”

In his work Mythologies (1972) Barthes states that we can analyze a food unity by denotation, the scientific description; or connotation, the social, cultural and political beliefs attached to then. He states an example around the unity stake. In the denotation level, the (French) stake is “meat in its pure state (…) natural, dense” (Barthes; 1972: 62). The connotative level starts by creating meaning through the effects, that is: “benefit all temperaments, (…) a redeeming food.”

The first connotation plays around the concepts of natural and traditional, bringing a symbolic separation to modernity. It is a national symbolism for France, condensed and adapted to each of the different social classes:

(18)

13

Like wine, steak is in France a basic element, nationalized even more than socialized. … It is a part of all the rhythms, that of the comfortable bourgeois meal and that of the bachelor’s bohemian snack. … Moreover, it is a French possession (circumscribed today, it is true, by the invasion of American steaks). As in the case of wine there is no alimentary constraint which does not make the Frenchman dream of steak. Hardly abroad, he feels a nostalgia for it. … Being part of the nation, it follows the index of patriotic values: it helps them to rise in wartime, it is the very flesh of the French soldier, the inalienable property which cannot go over to the enemy except by treason.(Barthes, 1972: 62)

The connotative meanings around the foods are elaborated into the cultural background, through the symbolic of transformation and consummation of food, playing a central value when stabilizing the structures of our society. In that case, the stake represents the nostalgic revival to a lost and important part of the national culture, a connection to past; the living unity of the flavors of an old rural society (Adams, 1990; Barthes, 1972, 1957).

The connotative meanings also exist when foods are compared by ranking practices. European culture privileges animal proteins over vegetable ones; but that does not imply that meat, eggs or milk protein are in fact better than legumes, but accounted with a higher status.

Thus, Barthes implies that an important collaboration of the production system into giving value in food is through serving qualitative attributes to unites, something that uses a denotative description to bring connotative values. These qualifications, such as crispy, or creamy, for instance, reinforce, change and re-create some unities of food. They are widely used in publicity to requalify some determined product in order to create emotional association with it.

Existing research

c. Carnism, the ideology of meat consumption: the processes of

commodification of nature

(19)

14

Melanie Joy is a professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts that is interest in the ideology behind the commodification of animals and the cultural background that justifies meat consumption, something that she does not recognize as natural, but constructed. She states (Tedx talks, 2015):

“We tend to assume that only vegans and vegetarians follow a belief system but when eating animals is not a necessity, which is the case in most of the world today, then it is a choice and choices always stem from beliefs.”

She argues (2009) that the consumption of animal products is a result of an ideological process that she defines as carnism, an institutionalized ideology legitimated in all the spheres in western society, where animals are stated in different categories of relation with humans. This process enables people to consume meat of certain animals and maintain a familiar relation with others, because of the way animals are categorized. Joy defines the three pillars of carnism in three ideals around the consumption of meat:

normality, naturalness and requirement; these three constructed and illusionary. The

myth of meat as an indispensable protein diffused by western´s education system is one of the main fundaments of that ideology. These concepts are also explored by Carol Adams (2008), that describes the power dynamics related to meat-consuming imperialistic history. Until this date the most important institutions still appoint meat as the best protein source, which is an ongoing practice of superiority, something that denies the legitimacy of most cultures that use grains and vegetables to provide complete protein. Meat is the legitimate food in the dominant western culture (Adams, 2008).

The dynamics of animal commodification described by Joy are supported by the connotative meanings of animal products and of nature itself. European culture has always relied in the processes of signification that place different meanings to nature and culture (Benton-Short and Short, 1999): the western signification of nature is a product of a representation that places environment and culture as two distinctive things (Haraway, 1983; Benton-Short and Short, 1999). The XX century is deeply market by a traditional split and opposition between culture and nature, the second being subordinated to the first. Reinforced by the capitalistic ideology described by Marx, our

(20)

15

gaze commodifies nature and sees its control as necessary and inevitable. (Haraway, 1983). More specifically, meat eating represents the values of human control over the environmental world (Fiddes, 1991). That is to say that we are signified by the separateness of nature; that is commodified by us under different categories (nonhuman animals that can be eaten or not). Our relation with animals is contingent by the values of commodification and classification.

According to Haraway, the opposition between nature and culture plays within the connection that culture could find with a utopic and original past, placed in the time frame previous to that distinction. Animals products hold the natural status of connection with our origin and our pre-cultural status (Haraway, 1983). That permits that they are placed in this relation of the original natural and the traditional past, playing an active role in cultural representation and nationalism (Barthes, 1975; Haraway, 1983; Benton-Short and Short, 1999).

d. The linguistics of meat

There´s a special concern in Barthes´, Adams´ and Joy´s around the semantics of meat. The meat ideology discourse enacts a dismemberment upon nature and real animals while proclaiming specific representations concerning their dead products (Adams, 1990). This process is supported linguistically: European languages do not refer to the animal products with the same names as the living animals, but with specific wordsthat were created to designate the consumable pieces of their corpses. (Joy, 2009; Adams, 1990). While the most common meat-products in each culture have a specific name, other dead animals are named meat. Especially in English, meat is just appended to words when there is the goal to describe an animal that is not consumed by us. While we have horsemeat and dog meat we cannot refer to cow meat, or chicken meat, or sheep meat (Adams, 1990). Cow meat is changed in to a variety different names, depending on its form or the location in the body of the animal. Adams reasons:

By speaking of meat rather than slaughtered, butchered, bleeding pigs, lambs, cows, and calves, we participate in language that masks reality. (...) Many vegetarians protest the use of euphemisms

(21)

16

such as speaking of white meat rather than of breasts and of dark meat rather than thighs. (…) Can a dead bird really be a ‘fresh young chicken” as the plastic wrapping at the meat counters proclaims? (p. 96, Adams, 1990)

According to the scholar, living animals are absent from their meat representative, in an attempt to dismember the meat from the animal itself. The final meat words eliminate the references of death and slaughter, but centers in a new meaning, in a metaphoric process that controls reality and violence, used in order to eliminate the necessity to address the meat issues. This process of the absent animal is supported by the strict aesthetic patterns that animal products are submitted, something that determine fine motivations in what concerns food appearance. Meat products are submitted to different processes and preparations in order to create a final perfect product that does not refer to its origins. Their final edible products, such as steak, chicken breasts, or the extraordinarily processed hamburger and nuggets, responds to a strong sense of aesthetics that masks their origins.

This semantic and physical construction happens in the purpose to construct different relationships with the products and animals, separating the possibly reliable animals with their products (Joy, 2009; Adams, 1990). When the animal is represented alive with their meat, something that has been explored by publicity and advertisement, their description implies that animals are happy and willing to be consumed (Adams, 1990).

Semantically, Adams add by comparing meat and vegetables symbolism: meat is associated with the principal part of something, used in positive expressions in English such as “meat of the matter”, “meaty question”, “beef up”. Vegetable symbolism is connected with “dullness”, “inactivity” and “passivity”. She exemplifies by this statement by Hegel: “The difference between men and women is like that between animals and plants. Men correspond to animals, while women correspond to plants because their development is more placid.” Meat is also a term used by women when meaning being mistreated or used. Feminists have made connection with the male oppression and meat eating through the semantic: “carnivorous arrogance´ (Simone de Beauvoir), ´genocidal gluttony´ (Mary Daly), ´sexual cannibalism´ (Kate Millet), ´psychic

(22)

17

cannibalism´ (Andrea Dworkin), ´metaphysical cannibalism´(Ti-Grace Atkinson).” (in Adams, 1990).

These semantic dynamics works in the level of constitution of animals in the metaphors of human power, relying to humans the eternal position of outsiders of nature. Animal products, defined through these meanings, are put in the position of submission and control. I conclude that animal vocabularies in European languages are used to highlight the processes of commodification of nature, transiting the animal

semantics as different from the living animals; something performed reflecting

ideologies of power.

e. Patriarchy and meat consumption

The books The sexual politics of meat and The pornography of meat by Carol Adams concentrate in the relations between patriarchy and the meat ideology. This relation is built around the connotative meanings around meat, something similar as Barthes approaches a steak, pictured by strength and the notion of power:

‘is the heart of meat, it is meat in its pure state; and whoever partakes of it assimilates a bull-like strength. … One can well imagine the ambrosia of the Ancients as this kind of heavy substance which dwindles under one’s teeth in such a way as to make one keenly aware at the same time of its original strength and of its aptitude to flow into the very blood of man’. (Barthes, 1972: 62)

Derrida understands the full and powerful subject in the western society as male and meat eater (1991).“Real men eat meat”: this popular quote states this well-known relation between masculinity and meat consumption. Adams work (2008) traces back in history a heartily relation between positions of power and meat consumption in patriarchal cultures: meat, which is a product of violence, historically represents a valuable commodity controlled by those in position of power, mirroring the hierarchical representations of the patriarchal values. Furthermore, meat-eating societies provide male identification through the choice of their food. It is notable in the western society that meat represents several signs of masculinity, like power, strength and potency. (Adams, 1990; Barthes, 1972; Joy, 2003). As Carol Adams reasons: “the male prerogative

(23)

18

to eat meat is an external, observable activity implicitly reﬂecting a recurring fact: meat is a symbol of male dominance.” The scholar defines this as a mythological ideology that “permeates all classes that meat is a masculine food and meat eating a male activity.” (1990: 69).

As stated by these scholars, the promotion of practices around animal products, are based in cultural backgrounds and reinforced and diffused by publicity. In sum, animal consumption, and specially meat eating, are permeated by a particular discursive manifestation of an overall violent ideology that is denominated, by Melanie Joy, as carnism. Animal consumption is related with the romantic aristocratic past, something that is often related with nationalism. This notion, as better described by Adams, is a product of patriarchal societies and refers and reproduces male symbolisms and notions of hierarchy and power. Modern advertisement has been pointed by scholars as one important actor to play in the semantic system of significations around food. Therefore, I conclude that analysis of actual marketing discourse is a necessary step if we attempt to understand the actual process of producers of animal industry within the present crisis.

(24)

19 4. Meat

4.1 McDonald´s

McDonald’s is an American fast food chain introduced in Europe in 1970´s. They are present in all of the countries in EU with more than 7,920 restaurants in the European continent (Mcdpressoffice.eu, 2016).

Good times

Narrative structure

The campaign: “Good Times”; issued in UK, until this date, is composed by two video commercials: “Lonely Hearts” and “Fun”.

“Lonely hearts” is a one-minute video that presents a couple in a blind date. Foucault describes that enunciates have specific characteristics according to the place they are produced (1969). Knowing that this video was issued in cinema and TV, its justifies that it follows the rules of formation within that place: it has a narrative line reassembling this format. The story starts with a British-looking young man in the train, visually nervous, something we can see by his facial expression and the movement of his hands, in the way to meet a British-looking young lady. The characters have attitudinal expressions that are present in the whole sequence through facial expressions, hand movements and body reactions. They work bringing easy understanding to emotional responses and recognition, providing identification with the narrative, something that states the possibility of materialization of the enunciation by the propositions of relation with reality, as the characters are similar to the audiences; a process that we recognize through all the scene of this commercial (Léon, 1992;

(25)

20

Figur 1 - McDonalds´ "Lonely Hearts", 0:13

Luhman, 2005). The narrative follows with the two characters meeting, and the scenes from that point proposes small odd situations marked by lack of understanding of each other and embarrassment, proposing a negative and funny picture of that date. John takes Emma to an art gallery that is represented by a stereotypical concept of modern art, as seen in the picture above. John says: “Is inspiring, isn´t it?” followed by a disagreement face expression by Emma.

The following scenes portrays the couple walking around and going to open and closed spaces in UK, something that reassembles the city of London. These sequences of common placescreate a sense of reality where the audiences are included in the scene, legitimating the story by generating reconnaissance (Léon, 1992; Luhman, 2005). The scenes are repetitive, both concerning the pattern situations where there are misunderstandings between the characters._{and the repetitive piano music. This process}

homogenizes the narrative sequence. Then there is a dark scene with lights shining, picturing the night time, the camera focusses on the couple while they uncomfortably say good-bye to each other. The camera then follows John; the shoot focuses on his face. His facial expressions progressively suggest that he has seen something that made him glad. The camera pans to reveal what he has seen: A McDonald´s franchise. He goes inside, visually happier, and orders a “Big Mac, strawberry milkshake and barbecue sauce”, here that the narrative surprises us: we hear the sound of a voice ordering simultaneously, than the camera reveals the character Emma.Then both John and

(26)

21

Emma looks happy and surprised, the cashiers look happy and surprised at each other and the scene is closed with the image of McDonald’s,_{shiny in the night with the big}

text: “Good times”in the center of the screen, the dot in the “I” has a transparent half crescent in the bottom making it look like a smile, clarifying the image.

This add follows a narrative line with frustrating eventspresented with elements of comedy. A boy, called Harry, is presented in several sequences where he appearsto have his fun moments interrupted by adults. The camera follows the little Harry, playing as a child, doing activities like running by the pool, touching mounters at a museum, jumping on the display beds in a store, and so on. Is not just like the kids we see in real life? Behind Harry there´s always an adult that orders him to behave with imperative phrases. The sequences are frustrating for Harry,he sights frequently. The fast change between scenes prepares us for the last scene, where Harry runs into a restaurant and is called by his mother, something interpretative as a rebuke. But we are surprised: the camera reveals the restaurant as McDonald’s by showing its interior design and Harry, this time, is allowed to do what he wants. And his wishes are clear: ordering the HappyMeal. The camera shows the family happy having fun while eating the hamburger. The ambiance loses its strictness in the restaurant and the atmosphere is relaxing for the first time. Then the image shows the restaurant from outside with the text “Good times”.

(27)

22

Figur 3 - "Fun", Harry blows the package of a straw at this father, in an act that probably would not be allowed outside the restaurant

Enunciations and the position of the subject

Foucault describes that the discursive formation has an object (1969). In the following advertisements the rules of formation employed in the enunciative development are created within the superficies of the centered object: the object of

refuge from everyday frustrations. Both adds will follow the same pattern of narrative,

but its audience goal will shift the characteristics of the enunciation, obeying the rules of formation of the discourse (Foucault, 1969).

The following table of characteristics identifies the two enunciations in these adds:

(28)

23

Enunciate Characteristics

 Couple goes to a bad date

 Boys has his liberty limited by adults

- Everyday life problems - Frustration

 They go to McDonald’s and the initial problems disappear; the narrative is shifted to happy and relaxed - McDonald’s is opposite to the previous situations - McDonald’s proportionate good human interaction - Mcdonald´s propose a solution

We could summarize this approach with the following formula: the characters encountering their happiness in a McDonalds’ is built in the values of trust,

positive emotion, happiness and friendliness by constructing this values in everyday

narratives. McDonald’s is appraised as the antithesis of frustration and negativity by the narrative structure. That is, through the solution, McDonald’s products are presented as the landscape: experiences are being offered rather than hamburgers. Barthes describes that a food can contain denotative and connotative meanings. These two campaigns completely abstain from references to the product itself, as they are not referred, concentrating deliberately in the connotative meanings.

Vis ta spontaneité

(29)

24

“Vis ta spontaneité” (Live your spontaneity), from Switzerland, is a video with no text, composed by short frames of different situations played with a dancing music proposing a dynamic commercial. McDonald’s is represented as a democratic diverse place: in a night, this sequence shows people of different ages, ethnicities and physical types in several places having a moment of allowance, characterized by fun or emotion, (something we can see by their expressions and actions) accompanied by a McDonald’s product. The short and fast cut between the scenes creates dynamic.

Figur 4 - "Vis ta spontaneité", 0:16 – Young man makes a tower of hamburgers

By the end the text “Vis ta spontaneité” is showed, followed by the image of a little girl flying with balloons in the front of a McDonalds, building a magic meaning.

(30)

25

McDonald’s will reclaim that position of the place of experience, delimitating the message according to its condition of existence (Foucault, 1968), exploring differently the discursive techniques in order to reach the same object as the previous commercial. The place of delimitation is different: in this add there is a focus on a wider consumer audience, something that produces a democratical atmosphere by the allowance of a wide group of people. Furthermore, in the denotative exploration of the meaning, the products are represented by the experiences with the food and the playful attitudes customers have while in the restaurant. As such, a statement could be synthetized: McDonald’s is a place of spontaneity. This democratical values are also grounded in the happy employees, and their interaction with the customers in a friendly manner; doing so, it states a friendly relationship by personificating the restaurants in their employees. Connotative meanings around the products are not present, instead there is a friendly cultural construction where the hamburgers are associated with the positive social experience. By doing so, their construction fits in the social symbolism of meat, supported by their place in culture and experience (Adams, 2008).

Pictograms

(31)

26

McDonald’s France, in 2014, launched a campaign with their products as icons represented by emoticons forming a pictogram of a McDonald’s product, in a cultural resignification process that recreates their products yoking them with recognizable cultural symbols. In May 2015, they issued a new version of that campaign, were the products, represented as pictograms, a format used in computer platforms, “irradiate” emoticons such as heart (love) and the thumbs-up (like).

(32)

27

Figur 8 - Macdonald´s campaign in Paris, 2015 Figur 9 – Mcdonald´s campaign in Paris, 2015

(33)

28

There is no text and the choices of colors (mainly red and yellow) and their logo induce the recognition of the enterprise. The images are centered in a white background, something that guarantees the virtual look that makes the audience familiar with: It could be an image in a mobile or in a social network.

McDonald’s add is composed by symbols signified into a new message, in a process of composition that combines signs of the actual pop culture with the products, something that could be translated as the cultural process that uses the reinstatement of symbols (Lippmann, 1992), an artefact of publicity used as enterprises gain credibility by becoming a part of the already admitted cultural symbols re-signifying them in their semiotic levels (Baudrillard, 2004). Culture is formed by the cyclical recreation and reinstitution of existing elements, something that advertisement takes as advantage in order to create credibility to the subject (Baudrillard, 2004).

As often applied in meat representations, where the origins of the product are omitted (Adams, 2008), this add represents the connotative levels, with the use of emoticons, social network signs that signifies in the linguistic levels by representing emotions. Selecting two positive emoticons, the symbol of like and the heart, the products are signified in an enjoyment way, using two symbols used in the social networks but already stablished in western cultures, as the thumbs up is linked with approval and

the heart associated with love. Resignified into the digital communication, the thumbs up, for instance, popularized through the social network Facebook, became the button

like, used to share a content that one has enjoyed (Facebook Developers, 2016). In the

first part of the campaign, these emoticons are used to form the products, in a direct

(34)

29

process of unifying the signifiers. Furthermore, this fusion of symbols impacts by emerging the emoticons signifiers in the products. The first campaign directly emerges the signifiers, clearly stating that the hamburgers, in this example, are pure materiality of enjoyment. The campaign of 2015, however, builds up the notion that the feelings represented are embedded in the products and their consumption is associated with these effects. That way, the coherence of this campaign is built by the resignification of their products into the meanings linked with this easily recognizable symbols, in a process of reutilization of culture in order to gain credibility.

Good to know

Two videos from this campaign will be explored.

“Always working” promotes the kid’s product Happy Meal. Miniature men are shown in an Arcadian version of the British countryside producing the product. There is a farm by open landscape filled with building structures, in a playful representation that reassembles with children movies by animation structure; but also toys, where small employees and structure build the giant products.

(35)

30

Figur 11 - "Always working"

While the video sequence shows the team work of this mini employees, new policies of the company relating to the product, such as reducing the quantity of

sodium in the burger, or using organic milk, are presented through a male voice that

remarks the concerned restaurant, worried with their customer’s health.

Figur 12 - "Always working", 0:40

“Chicken”, another video of this campaign approach the origins of their chicken nuggets. Sarah, presented as a mother, seems confused when her son requests chicken nuggets. The video intersects with her imagination: an intertextual sequence that shows a mad-scientist and Frankenstein chicken. Sarah looks in the internet and

(36)

31

finds a page called “The Rumor mill”.

Figur 13 - "Good to know, Chicken" - 0:08

Than the sequence presents a new character: Rosie, “a food tech-teacher

and mom”, a smiling lady inside a full equipped kitchen. There she eats a piece of the

product, and, attests that it is “100% chicken breast”. The final text concludes to their audiences: “everyone is happy”, while Rosie throws confetti at the mother and her child, attesting a moment of celebration.

Foucault stabilizes the relation of power and knowledge in the western societies through the discourse that stabilizes truth around the essential interests of domination of people (1975). Advertisement, when focusing on enunciative objects, have as their central goal the seduction of the consumers, keeping a relation of truth, that is to say, creating meanings around its product based on cultural aspects (Roiz, 1996; Baudrillard, 2004). In these advertisements McDonald’s strives to produce the notions of truth around their ingredients, something explored through playful fictional representations.

Associated with child audiovisuals, the first, and presented as a satire that represent the role models of mothers, the second, McDonald’s gains the credibility they aim to attach in their products by producing discourses directly associated with their

(37)

32

audiences (Baudrillard, 2004). Despite directly dealing with their ingredients, the signification around the products is not done at the denotative level (Barthes, 1972), but in external meanings of a plastic aesthetic of the products, presented in both sequences in playful representations. There is a romantic perception of its production that plays with fantastic sequences around the universe of their audiences, inserting the product in their cultural perspectives where models are stated in order to place the restaurant in their audience’s place (Roiz, 1996). The language used is clear: Rose, stated as the

mother, represents a comical version of a possible situation; as the food-tech-teacher and mom is a model that is charged with the credibility searched by the first mom. Or,

in the fantastic scenario, the restaurant emphatically metaphors their care around their ingredients by representing their production sequence with the small characters, working in an organized and friendly farm, a perfect small world, clean and plastic.

When analyzing the narrative, the second sequence is a response to critics and it narration is structured in order to mock then. Macdonald´s uses irony to ridicule critiques, something that reinforces the pensive force of this discourse by showing its superiority, through a statement that, by relating the rumors around the product with the book by Mary-Shelley and the creation of the grotesque creature, overstate their critics by exposing them as absurd, and, in doing so, reclaim their reliability as a company. In this case this nifty narrative, where the negative meanings around their products are playful and presented in their full absurdity, excused them from addressing the real questions posed in the critics. What if the critics against McDonald’s are placed in such absurd bases that we could produce humor of it? That way, the original critiques are resignified. That´s due to the nature of the discourse, that is always controlled, organized and redistributed in a way to conjure its powers and dodge their appalling and heavy materiality (Foucault, 1972). The discourse is resignified inside the interests of the subject of regaining credibility.

When it comes to the position of the subject, McDonald’ evaluates itself through the narrators and their representations of the production process, that present them in an overall positive social responsible company, that takes actions into making a new product with alterations that are shown as positive (presented in the first sequence) or into guaranteeing a reliable product, represented by the improvements and the 100%

(38)

33

chicken nuggets. Most importantly, the production process is focused under the gazes of trust and concern with the public, as both the commercial are addressed directly to specific audiences and central matters into their interests.

4.2 KFC

KFC is an American fast food chain introduced in Europe in the 1960´s. (KFC Europe, 2016).

Families

This add from UK plays on our empathy by following a recently adopted boy growing up with his new family, through presenting some moments of his life. In the beginning the family has its first moment together when eating fried chicken from KFC. That moment is repeated in the last scene, when the adult boy reunites with his family and receives a new adopted kid in the same conditions. Grandfather and son (now adoptive father) smileat each other in an act of approbation. Than the last screen shoot is showed:

(39)

34

The life narrative of this sequence plays an important role of constructing the meanings of the product by modeling them with the add family. In the occasion of 50 years of KFC, this family will illustrate the meanings of the product in a model family. That position of exemplifying by a situation that could be real, could create recognition and therefore credibility (Roiz, 1996). This model representation is explored by some positions in the individual characters and in their interaction with the family: the presence of a kid, in the first sequence, with the sad and insecure looks, states the initial feeling of the adopted kid. In the following sequence, where the boy appears growing, KFC is placed in the function of guarantying the comfort and familiarity for the children by relating the product with positive and social situations in the life of the boy, that is no longer in the same condition as in the first scene. In the last scene, there is a new adopted boy with similar expressions as the first one. When the father puts the KFC bucket on the table in that occasion and smiles at his own father, the narrative claims the values of the product and their position in the family. This cause relation of the bucket in their lives and their position in the family life in the connotative level, evaluates the product in their position in the family, associates with values such as human

connections and the comfortable feeling of familiarity.

As such, this add states a model around the objects of family, tradition and

union stating by the narrative a clear message of the position of their product, an

strategy of credibility of publicity (Barthes, 1964). In the enunciation “Celebrating 50 years of Family”, KFC is re-signified with cultural value, something that could entice consumers to become loyal. The use of the word family suggests that the subject, KFC, is part of the family itself.

KFC Original Bucket

(40)

35

This narrative add from Germany follows a European man, accompanied by a lady, going to an Opera performance, both in formal dress. There, they meet another couple; they seem to know each-other. The man shows clear signs of irritability by the situation, something we can determine by his expressions and acts. By some point, in what appears to be an intermittence, the character fakes a phone call and literally runs away, unties his bowl-tie and arrives at a KFC restaurant, where he meets the other man by coincidence. Both smile and sit down together, while the narrator says: “Echter Genuss! Echt Du! Holt jetzt den Original Bucket! Die Klassiker von KFC in einem Bucket”.4

Following the modus operandi of the advertisements that we have seen until now, KFC builds the meaning around the enunciative object of experience. The narrative sequence in this add produces a notion of consequence by the construction of two different moments: the opera, characterized by tension and boredom; and the relaxed ambient, at KFC. This consequential sequence with elements of cause sells the imaginary ideal that its product can bring pleasure, representing through a model of situation. We can divide this add as the table below:

Enunciation Characteristics

- Male goes to opera, has a boring time, runs away as he finds one opportunity.

- The male is posed in the cultural place by the female

- Opera or culture is feminine

- He has his impulses controlled

- The character runs away and goes to KFC

- Male follows his real impulses

(41)

36

restaurant to eat fried chicken

- Meat is masculine - He can now relax

This denotation supports itself in the representation of feminine and masculine. The two characters that find Opera boring and encounter pleasure in KFC are men while the women stay at the Opera. A stereotype is resignified: masculinity is associated with KFC, basing themselves in the notions of virility around concepts of masculinity that are connected with meat consumption signifiers in western societies (Adams, 1990; Joy, 2004). Women, however, are associated in the campus of culture as the female characters do not attend the second sequence of this add. At all events, this resignification restates the relations of power itself because it revisits this symbol of meat in a sexist society, producing the truth that meat is associated with male and therefore power (Adams, 1990). These are practices that, according to Foucault maintain the relations of power by reinstating the truth (1975). That is also a way of giving credibility to the company, as it supports itself in the already accepted male concepts of meat (Baudrillard, 2004).

(42)

37 Friendship bucket test

This Christmas video from UK is a part of a campaign where people could win grand prizes by participating in a friendship test. In a Christmas decorated studio that resembles a home, pairs sitting by a table with an empty bucket are asked questions about each other. Each right answer gives them a chicken piece. The scenario shows elements from Christmas.

The questions produce emotional reactions. The question “been brave”, for instance, teases the participants to revoke sad periods like war and death of a relative. The music in this part is changed to a sad melody enhancing the mood of the moment, as a resource that clearly explicates the sadness of the sequence. Than the last question “biggest fashion disaster” gets the movie back on a friendly and humorous level, accompanied by happy music and laughs. The buckets, by that point, are full. The last sequence shows everyone eating the fried chicken; two ladies “toasting” with chicken wings and the screen suggests: “Play this Christmas”.

We have analyzed until here that the Animal Industries enunciations adapt itself according to their places of insertion, that is to say, their time and aimed consumer. The discourse reflects the time frame of its creation, and certainly advertisement takes advantages of the already recognized enunciations around the times of tradition. KFC also takes advantage of this questioning-game format, widely used in TV shows and on the internet.

It is not clear if this sequence was filmed with actors or not. The mise-en-scene is clearly scripted; as its construction was made on the purposes around a certain object of tradition and friendship, one derivation of the human relations object. In this video, the montage follows an emotional line of progression. It starts presenting the

(43)

38

game and engaging the participants with a simple question, that is written on the screen: “what do you like in common?”, getting simple answers with giggling reactions. The second questionis shown as the picture below:

Probably KFC did not perceive the irony of that frame because the fried product is so far removed from the original living animal: the live chicken, the animal, is no longer present in the edible product, playing with this artefact that is widely used in the semantic constitutions around animal products, as discussed by Adams (1990). This absence permits the same subject to enunciate that an animal can be saved from a fire but not its flesh from becoming fried chicken.

This add articulates their enunciations around emotive representations. The easy sequence where everyone is unserious reveals a cathartic action of the product. With a discourse charged with emotional approaches, KFC picture itself as relied with the commitment to human relations. The philosophy of KFC fried chicken builds up meaning in this sequence around the concepts of fidelity (friends celebrates having KFC), allowance (different emotions can be connected with the representation) and tradition (associated with Christmas); a series of enunciations that produces meaning around the objects of human relation.

(44)

39 4.3 Charal

Charal is the leading meat brand in France. Since 2008 it is part of the Bigard Group, one of the leading meat industries in Europe (Charal.com, 2016).

Rien ne remplace l´effet d´une bonne viande

5

Working around experiences, this spot from France enunciates a narrative with a European woman in her 30s as the main character. Her mood is represented by a bar in the bottom of the screen that depletes as the commercial progresses, as the picture bellow:

Figur 17 - "Rien ne remplace l'effet d'une bonne viande" - 0:13

(45)

40

The narrative structure shows the woman in a sequence of frustrating events accompanied by the decreasing of the bar and a minor scale of sound. The opposite happens for happy moments. When the bar gets to the lowestpossible level, a deep voice utters the title of this commercial, proposing that just meat can bring a certain effect, while the image shows a red aesthetic clean symmetrical steak. The next sequence frames the woman´s face while eating it. Her expressions show pleasure and the humor bar increases rapidly to the max, when a deep rough masculine voice sings “You feel happy”. The up-shot, showing the logo of the company accompanied by the maximum filled mood-bar, something that emphasizes the good effect of Charal, has an imperative masculine voice imposing the particular proposition from the brand: “Hmmm, Charal. ”

Advertising publicity is enunciated as frank as possible (Barthes, 1971). The enunciative strategies of this narrative are fully explored in order to state the strong and plain message with the use of visual (the humor bar) and sound aids that meat produces the reversion of the frustrating effects from previously into the pleasure experience that is consuming the steak.

Global Warming, Health and the Animal Industry. A Critical Discourse Analysis of Advertisements from the Animal Industry in EU after the Reports by WHO, FAO and IPCC