Genuine Zoocentrism or Dogged Anthropocentrism?

On the Personification of Animal Figures in the News

Author(s)

  • Emmanuel Gouabault Author
  • Annik Dubied Author
  • Claudine Burton-Jeangros Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52537/humanimalia.10059

Abstract

Human-Animal relationships are changing and the media coverage of animal issues plays a major part in these transformations. The personification of animals is a socially-constructed process through which the status of a person is attributed to an animal. In this article, we analyze this process in the media, through successive analytical steps. Identifying the attributes of animal personification enables us to distinguish three increasingly complex levels of this process. In the most developed stage, the process of ‘starification’ is applied to the animal, such as in the 2007 case of the polar bear Knut, the abandoned cub of the Berlin Zoo. Using the ‘contrasted portrait’ approach, we then compare this story to an opposite animal figure, also making headline news in the media at the same time, namely the three pitbulls dogs who killed a child on his way to school in the eastern part of Switzerland. This analysis illustrates a number of current mutations in human-animal relationships and challenges the idea of ‘growing zoocentrism.’ Indeed, personified animals transformed in human figures rather than promoted as subjects of interest in themselves, suggest a permanence of anthropocentrism.

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Author Biographies

  • Emmanuel Gouabault

    Emmanuel Gouabault, PhD, is Researcher and Teaching Assistant in Sociology in in the Departments of Sociology and Political Science, University of Geneva, University of Applied Social Sciences (HETS), Geneva School of Business Administration (HEG), Health and Social Services Training Centre (CFPS). He is a Social Sciences Expert in the Swiss Bat Centre (CCO), the Museum of Natural History in Geneva, and in the DAS “Therapy assisted by horse” at the University of Educational and Applied Social Sciences (EESP), Lausanne. His research fields include: Anthrozoological and Human-Nature Relationships, Social Imaginary, Interdisciplinarity (sociology, history, anthropology) and Qualitative methodology (Content analysis, focus group). He has published “La résurgence contemporaine du symbole du dauphin. Une approche socio-anthropologique “ (ANRT, 2008), co-edited a special issue in Sociétés  (Les relations anthropozoologiques ou l’animal conjugué au présent des sciences sociales  (2010), and recently “L’évolution des relations humain-animal. Frontières et ambivalences” (Sociologie et Société, 42/1, 2010).

  • Annik Dubied

    Annik Dubied is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Geneva. Her research interests lie in the sociology of communication, and focuses on popular culture and the storytelling phenomenon through various case studies (celebrity news, representations of Human-Animal relationships, crime news). She has published in many refereed journals in French,two books on crime news (Le fait divers [1999] with Marc Lits, and Les dits et les scenes du fait divers[2004]), as well as several collective volumes – including one on celebrity news (Communication, n°27, 2009). She is currently co-editing a special issue of Journalism. Theory, Practice and Criticism with Thomas Hanitzsch on Celebrity News. Production, Contents and Consumption and a collective volume Aux frontières de l'animal. Mises en scène et réflexivités (Droz) with David Gerber and Juliet Fall.

  • Claudine Burton-Jeangros

    Claudine Burton-Jeangros is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Geneva. Her research fields include: social representations of risks, health inequalities with a focus on gender and lifecourse, family and health, human-animal relationships. She has published Cultures familiales du risque (2004,), co-edited Face au risque (2007) and Risques et informations dans le suivi de la grossesse : droit, éthique et pratiques sociales (2010). 

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Published

2011-09-17

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

“Genuine Zoocentrism or Dogged Anthropocentrism? On the Personification of Animal Figures in the News”. 2011. Humanimalia 3 (1): 77-100. https://doi.org/10.52537/humanimalia.10059.