How Movement Leaders Explain Their Strategic Choices

Chapter 7

Now that we have learned what these five animal rights organizations communicate in their vegan campaigns, it’s useful to understand why they made those strategic choices. Through interviews in 2008, I gave the leaders of these organizations a chance to explain their decision- making rationales for crafting persuasive messages, particularly in terms of how they are influenced by their own views on nonhuman animals, humanity, and ethics. In this chapter I share some of the interesting commentary from each of the five animal rights organization leaders:

§ Erica Meier of Compassion Over Killing (COK), § Alex Hershaft of the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM), § Gene Baur of Farm Sanctuary, § Bruce Friedrich of People for the Ethical Treatment of Ani- mals (PETA), and § Matt Ball of Vegan Outreach.1

1 I conducted these interviews by phone in 2008 and recorded them with each individ- ual’s permission. I have organized this chapter according to topics where I synthesize commentary from all the leaders as it fits the topic rather than providing full tran- scripts of each interview verbatim. I often paraphrase their comments, but I put verbatim comments/terminology in quotation marks. Note that Ingrid Newkirk, the co- founder and head of PETA, was out of the country at the time of my original interviews, so she recommended I instead speak with PETA’s then-Vice President Bruce Friedrich. As VP of International Campaigns, Bruce was a fitting replacement since he had worked at PETA for over a decade at that time, heading up many food cam- 178 Framing Farming: Communication Strategies for Animal Rights

I asked them questions such as:

§ To what extent and in what ways does your animal rights philosophy influence your message strategy? § Explain the history of your food campaign message strategy and why you have chosen your current approach. § In your campaigns, do you emphasize dietary changes based on the audience member’s self-interested motives or more al- truistic motives? To what extent does your choice affect how your audience members would or would not change their view of other animals? § What values related to other animals do you assume the pro- posed audience member already possesses? What values related to other animals do you intend to promote in your food campaign message? Do any of these values conflict with each other? If so, how do you reconcile that conflict? § In what ways, if any, do your campaign messages promote the similarities between humans and other animals? How is your strategic use of visual imagery related to how you would like your audience to view human beings in relation to other animals? § Do you believe your campaign messages are influenced more by your theories on animal rights or your theories of what works best to get people to switch their diet? 2

To structure their diverse responses to these questions, I organize their decision-making rationales into two communication ethics approaches – deontological (more idealistic and means-oriented) and utilitarian (more pragmatic and ends-oriented). I define deontological approaches as privileging the most ethical communication act (or right means) to achieve one’s desired end result (as it is an ethical perspec- tive that favors duty over consequences). Messages are assessed as paigns. I was later able to interview Ingrid in 2012, and her comments are shared in the next chapter, along with recent feedback from all of the original five interviewees. 2 It is interesting to note that, in answering my interview questions, many of the leaders voluntarily made reference to philosophical concepts and philosophers such as Peter Singer, Tom Regan, utilitarianism, deontology, and pragmatism. This speaks to the deep understanding that these activists have for moral philosophy, in particular animal rights ideology.