An Analysis of Diversity in Nonhuman Animal Rights Media

Lack of diversity in the ranks as well as a failure to resonate with

disadvantaged groups and other anti-oppression movements has been cited as one

important barrier to the American Nonhuman Animal rights movement’s success

(Kymlicka and Donaldson in Animal rights, multiculturalism and the Left. The

Mellon Sawyer Seminar at the Graduate Center, CUNY. City University of New

York, New York, 2013). It is possible that social movements are actively inhibiting

diversity in the ranks and audience by producing literature that reflects a narrow

activist identity. This article creates a platform from which these larger issues can be

explored by investigating the actual demographic representations present in a small

sample of popular media sources produced by the movement for other animals. A

content analysis of 131 magazine covers produced by two highly visible movement

actors, PETA and VegNews, was conducted to demonstrate that activist representations in at least some dominant American Nonhuman Animal rights media are

mostly white, female, and thin.