Social media discourse on meat consumption
- 15.07.2025
- English Articles
- Corinna Neuthard
- Angela Häußler
- Eleonore Heil
Peer reviewed / Manuscript (Original) received: 21 July 2023; Revision accepted 18 January 2024
Renegotiation and staging of human-animal relationships
Introduction
The Kassel Environmental and Cultural Festival, which has been held annually since the early 1990s, was organized without the sale of meat products for the first time in 2017. This decision by the organizers of the half-day regional festival attracted a great deal of national and, in some cases, international attention and led to a discussion about meat consumption with an emphasis on very different aspects such as the environment and climate, health, politics and ethics [1].
The festival is an exemplary occasion that has led to discussions about the modalities of meat consumption, i.e. the way in which meat is produced and consumed. The sometimes highly emotional discussions about eating meat point to the current need to renegotiate the (social) treatment of animals.
Many of today's discussions are carried out via social media. The meat-free Kassel environmental and cultural festival was also discussed in Facebook comments. The Facebook discussion about this festival was examined as an example in order to find out how meat consumption and the treatment of animals were staged on social media and to deduce which modalities of meat consumption are socially acceptable. ...
Abstract
The social renegotiation of the modalities of meat consumption and a social discomfort in the current treatment of ('farm') animals is evident in numerous discussions, which are also carried out in social media. As an example, a Facebook discussion – triggered by the renunciation of meat dishes at an annual Hessian environmental and cultural festival – was examined through discourse and content analysis in order to gain insight into the social acceptability of different meat consumption options through the self-presentation of the commentators. Factory farming, 'cheap meat' and large quantities of meat were viewed negatively and were not consumed in the commentators' self-presentation. Depending on the moral classification of animal use, more expensive meat from 'good' farming in small quantities or no meat as well as the respective type of consumption were rated positively. There was a questioning of the normality of so-called carnism, but the commentators did not automatically question meat consumption. It is not the fundamental requirement that is under discussion, but the necessary extent of the change.
