The most basic task that the animal advocate must achieve is to be understood. The message should not be lost in big words, confusing symbols, or disorganized ideas. Animal advocates have a responsibility to make their messages clear.
With that in mind, I copied and pasted text from a handful of vegan fliers into a readability tool. The tool determines the amount of education required to understand the literature. It calculates the "Flesch Reading Ease." A score of 90–100 means the literature can be easily understandable by an average 11-year old student, a score between 60–70 can be easily understandable by 13- to 15-year old students, and a score 30 and under means the literature best understood only by college graduates.
Since most of the literature is to be handed out to high school and college students, not college graduates, it makes sense to craft a pamphlet that is easily understood by 13-15 year olds, that is, a pamphlet that has a Flesch Reading Ease score of 60 or higher.
The results of my little experiment? Poor.
I won't name names, but here's an idea:
An "abolitionist" flier scored a Flesch Reading Ease of 27.46. In comparison, Reader's Digest magazine is about 65, Time magazine scores about 52, and the Harvard Law Review has a general readability score in the low 30s. This one page flier was more difficult to read and understand than the Harvard Law Review. (source)
Another "abolitionist" pamphlet scored 36.36.
A "what's wrong with dairy" flier received a score of 39.48.
An animal emancipation style flier scored a respectable 45.79.
In contrast, a vegan education booklet scored 61.12.
And a "vegetarian starter kit" returned a result of 64.23.
Why does this happen? I think this happens because many of the people who write these hand-outs are smart, educated people who are very capable of understanding complex language. Many have studied philosophy or law and are very comfortable writing in an academic style. But there may be another explanation.
Regardless, we should all learn from this. We should make sure our fliers can be easily understood by most people. By making our message difficult to understand, we're not only failing the animals, we're also excluding a number of people who might very well have become vegan or vegetarian had they received a more readable pamphlet or had they stumbled across a more readable website.
To improve your writing's readability, try using shorter sentences and smaller words.
(By the way, this blog post received a score of 59.55. Not bad, but plenty of room for improvement.)
Mark Hawthorne suggests letter-writing as one means of 'selling compassion.' Here is his advice:
"Tips for Effective Animal-Rights Letters to Editors"
"Tell readers something they might not know – such as that most hens are confined in battery cages or how dairy cows are treated to produce milk – and suggest ways readers can make a difference (stop buying eggs and dairy products)."
I'm continually surprised by how little people seem to know about animal issues. For example, many people don't even realize that cows must be impregnated in order to produce milk.
L.O.V.E. has done an excellent job explaining this fact in their page on "Why Vegan":
"As with humans, dairy cows produce milk for their children and therefore only produce milk after giving birth. Impregnation is commonly done by shoving a hand into the cow’s anus to guide an insemination gun that is pushed into the cow’s vagina. This process is repeated every year so she will continue to produce milk. Her baby is taken away from her shortly after birth, destined either to become veal or another dairy cow. After 4 to 6 years of being used by us as a milk machine, her milk production declines and, being no longer of any economic value for us, she is sent to slaughter. Her flesh often ends up in fast food hamburgers. All dairy products, including organic and grass-fed, come from cows destined for the slaughterhouse." says L.O.V.E., which stands for Living Opposed to Violence and Exploitation.
Hawthorne continues:
"Include information about the issue(s); do not assume that readers already know. For example, rather than writing 'Foie gras production is bad,' be specific: 'In order to create ‘fatty livers,’ foie gras producers subject ducks and geese to an invasive feeding technique that forces into their stomachs up to thirty percent of their body weight every day. That’s like a two-hundred-pound man being forced to swallow sixty pounds of food a day.'"
More tips from Hawthorne:
"Watch your language. Instead of referring to an animal with an inanimate pronoun ('that' or 'it'), use 'who,' 'she' or 'he.' Also, use 'animal advocates' rather than 'animal-rights groups,' 'farmed animals' rather than the friendly 'farm animals' and 'painkiller' rather than 'anesthesia.'"
"Use positive suggestions to help readers make a difference. For example, rather than simply writing “Boycott the circus,” you can suggest events that don’t use animals, such as Cirque du Soleil, or direct them to Web sites like circuses.com."
I whole-heartedly agree. Once people realize the horrific realities of animal exploitation, they see that the problem is enormous and they often feel powerless. They need suggestions for concrete action. This is an area where Mark Hawthorne has truly excelled. He's written a book purely on the topic of animal advocacy:
"Do not use overly dramatic language, which may turn some readers off. Let the facts speak for themselves."
I think it depends on the context. Dramatic language can incite controversy, which publishers seem to love because it tends to sell more, so they're sometimes more interested in publishing letters with dramatic language. The more controversial, the more attention you get. PETA proves that everyday.
" Use an affirmative voice. For example, rather than writing 'Vegans are not wimps,' write 'Vegans have a much healthier body-mass index than most meat-eaters, and they live years longer.'"
"Promote the friendly side of veganism/vegetarianism and animal advocacy, and refrain from insults, which will hurt your credibility and perpetuate a negative opinion of animal activists."
A good way to do this is to "sit" on the letter. Write a letter and then don't send it. Wait a day, reread, edit if necessary, and then send the letter.
Trust me, I've written a lot of things off-the-cuff and I've gotten myself into a lot of hot water. Sometimes the results are good, sometimes not. We're all human and we all make mistakes. And anger against animal exploitation and animal exploiters is often justified. But take it from me, cooling off before hitting the "send" button is usually a good idea.
"Like humans, animals have a wide range of emotions. Try to depict this in your letters and help people understand how similar animals are to us. For example, 'Like all animals, pigs feel pain and fear …'
Clearly, these tips can be used not just for newspaper opinion section letter-writing, but also for blogging, commenting on blogs, emails to friends and family, forum posts, and more."
Mark Hawthorne describes some ways to sell compassion in "Framing the Animal Rights Message." I agree with most of these "Ten Rules":
Luntz provides readers with his Ten Rules of Effective Language:
1. Simplicity — Use small words. Avoid words that might force someone to reach for the dictionary (because most people won’t). 2. Brevity — Use short sentences. Never use a sentence when a phrase will do, and never use four words when three can say as much. 3. Credibility is as important as philosophy — People have to believe it to buy it. 4. Consistency matters — Repetition, repetition, repetition. Finding a good message and then sticking with it takes extraordinary discipline, but it pays off tenfold in the end. You may be making yourself sick saying something over and over, but many in your audience will be hearing it for the first time. (During the Prop 2 initiative battle in California, supporters of the measure to ban intensive confinement have constantly said Prop 2 would allow animals “to stand up, turn around, lie down and fully extend their limbs” — often several times in the same interview or debate). 5. Novelty — Offer something new. Words that work often involve a new definition of an old idea (such as when author Ruth Harrison used the term “factory farms” in 1964 to describe what the ag industry calls “concentrated animal feeding operations”). 6. Sound and texture matter — A string of words that have the same first letter, the same sound or the same syllabic cadence is more memorable than a random collection of sounds (see #5). 7. Speak Aspirationally — Messages need to say what people want to hear. Think of Martin Luther King, Jr., and his “I have a dream” speech. (This can be difficult when addressing the plight of animals. I often speak about rescued animals living on sanctuaries, free from pain and fear. Getting people to visit a sanctuary so they can meet these animals themselves is even better.) 8. Visualize — Plant a vivid image. There is one word in the English language that automatically triggers the process of visualization: imagine. (Asking people to imagine their dog or cat being forced to undergo painful medical tests or to be locked in a wire battery cage for two years and then slaughtered can be a way to help people see things differently.) 9. Ask a question. Luntz cites the dairy industry’s “Got Milk?” as perhaps the most memorable print-ad campaign of the past decade. 10. Provide Context and Explain Relevance. You must give people the “why” of your message before giving them the “therefore” and the “so that.” Some people call this framing, but Luntz prefers the word context.
Sadly, many activists don't use these "rules." In fact, they often speak in an abstract, noninspirational, long, academic way. We all do it sometimes, but we'll never get better unless we realize our mistakes.
Here are a few things I do in vegan blogs that seem to help "sell" veganism:
Visualize: I use images and videos often. If there is one single thing every vegan blogger could improve upon, it's the use of videos. We MUST use videos as much as possible, because they are extremely compelling.
Consistency: I link back to older blog posts and repeat the same message in a new post.
Credibility: I stay honest. If I make a mistake and someone calls me on it, I admit the mistake and then fix it.
Simplicity: I try to imagine a child or teenager reader. If I think it would make sense to them, then I've done a good job.
Brevity: There is a place for long blog posts, but I try to say the important stuff up front so if someone's attention span is short, they still get the gist.
Novelty: I scan the news for vegan and vegetarian tidbits. This keeps things fresh.
My mother-in-law sent me a link about crush videos, small animal snuff films fetishized for sexual pleasure. I forwarded the link to Jill at Feministe, hoping the legal issues and pornography aspect would pique her interests (she's a feminist lawyer, after all). Sure enough, she posted about it.
I refrained from commenting much, given that my reputation (amongst meat-eaters) is in the toilet and people (who like to eat dead animals) tend to disregard what I have to say. So I left only one comment. Luckily, others picked up the slack and made the connections. For example:
preying mantis wrote: "On top of that, the few cases where the producers have been found, investigated, and reported on involved the women in the videos having been coerced into it, so you have that on top of the animal cruelty."
Alderson Warm-Fork says, " if your issue is the slow crushing of small animals - when egg-laying hens reproduce, half their young are male. these males are ‘useless’ for profit. thus, less than a day old, they are disposed of, often by ‘crushing’. "
Jessica says, "Where consent cannot be obtained, a fetish should not be indulged. Simple as that. An animal cannot consent to this and to do it anyway is a kind of rape/murder. These are snuff films, no doubt about it."
puerdixit hit the nail on the head with THE BEST (in my opinion) analysis of all:
"I’m certainly against humans harming other beings for pleasure–sexual, gustatory, aesthetic or other. However, as a queer person, I’m unnerved by sex panics. I personally don’t see crush porn as ethically far from leather fetish (as much as I appreciate leatherqueers as part of my culture) or, heck, even the whole 'fuck-me boots' thing when those boots are made of dead animals. So I’m intrigued by how people think and talk about crush fetish, and what these responses say about larger attitudes towards non-humans, sexuality, and gender."
My conclusions:
People are often shocked and angered by cruel uses of animals that do not result in their own personal pleasure. The more someone can 'other' the animal abuser, the easier it is for them to condemn the cruelty. But unfortunately, the more 'different' the cruelty, the easier it is for them to overlook their own complicity in similar forms of animal cruelty.
Opening up a discussion of animal cruelty, in circles of people concerned about justice, will often result in at least some discussion about the cruelty inherent in factory farming. For that reason alone, it's worthwhile to attempt to ignite these kinds of discussions in these kinds of groups.
In discussions of pornography, the notion of consent is virtually always present. It's crucial in feminist theory and also crucial in animal rights theory. Animals can not and do not consent to much of what humans do to them. Thus, when the door is opened to discussions of animals, consent becomes a topic. Animal righters ought to learn how to talk about consent to people who don't want to consider animal's interests.
Animal cruelty associated with sex (crushing) or violence (dog-fighting, bull-fighting) seems to be more interesting to media producers (of all kinds, bloggers included) than the more routine forms of animal cruelty, like factory farming. Because of this, these kinds of animal cruelty discussions can be gateways to discussions of other forms of animal cruelty. But those discussions must be shaped carefully by animal advocates, otherwise, they will devolve into hatred of the 'othered'.
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