ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the discourse of consumer-citizens who oppose ag-gag legislation, specifically North Carolina’s House Bill 405 (HB405), and considers how cyber activism (e.g. signing an online petition) offers insight into consumer-citizens’ perspectives. It situates HB405 and the bill’s opposition within the larger context of concentrated animal feeding operations, the global trade of meat, undercover animal activist investigations, and state legislation affecting undercover investigations. Critical discourse analysis of the 8000 comments signers added to a Change.org petition opposing HB405 revealed three general themes: (1) application of the logic of post 9/11 citizen surveillance to their opposition to ag-gag, (2) description of a moral right to know about the practices of industrial animal agriculture, and (3) an understanding of how the effects of HB405 transcended the boundaries of the state that sought to adopt the legislation. These findings have implications for both research on cyber activism and strategies for advocacy efforts.

摘要

本研究分析了反对反歧视立法的消费者公民的话语，特别是北卡罗来纳州的 405 号众议院法案 (HB405)，并考虑了网络激进主义（例如签署在线请愿书）如何洞察消费者公民的观点。它将 HB405 和该法案的反对置于集中动物饲养业务、全球肉类贸易、卧底动物活动家调查以及影响卧底调查的州立法的更大背景下。对添加到反对 HB405 的 Change.org 请愿书中的 8000 条评论签名者的批判性话语分析揭示了三个一般主题：(1) 将 9/11 后公民监视的逻辑应用于他们反对 Ag-gag，(2) 描述了解工业化畜牧业实践的道德权利，(3) 了解 HB405 的影响如何超越寻求通过立法的国家的边界​​。这些发现对网络激进主义的研究和倡导工作的策略都有影响。