PETA: People For Ethical Treatment Of Animals

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is one of the most recognizable organizations within the animal rights movement, due in part to their attention grabbing antics and controversial advertisements. While PETA has been successful in creating visual rhetoric that generally appeals to the audience’s cognitive reasoning and emotions they are often not successful in catalyzing actual change in behaviour.

The truth about PETA, is that they do not want all animals to roam free. They want the population of dogs and cats to be reduced through spaying and neutering. They would like people to adopt animals from pounds or animal shelters, rather than buying from pet shops or breeders. They do claim to be the number one animal activist groups out there. Are they who they claim to be? What they don't advertise, is that

PETA, though it does many things, has four main objectives. They focus on animal cruelty on factory farms, which are also known as confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and intensive livestock operations (ILOs). These farms are more worried about profits and high volumes of goods than they are about human health, safe food, the environment, fair treatment of animals, and the surrounding economy (Factory Farms). PETA also focuses on cruel treatment to animals in laboratories, in the fur trade, and in the entertainment industry (like Khartoum). They also work on projects helping birds, beavers, and abused backyard dogs, as some examples. To reach the public, PETA uses many tactics, including working “through public education, cruelty investigations, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and direct action.” (PETA: Official Page). PETA tries to reach the public any way possible.

Recall the line, “Help control the pet population, have your pets spayed or neutered.” Famous game show host Bob Barker recited this tagline to conclude every episode of the longest running game show aired, The Price is Right. Although notorious for hosting The Price is Right for thirty-five years, Bob Barker is also a well-known animal rights activist. Barker didn’t become famous without enduring a few speed bumps in his life. However through his dedication, determination, and doggedness, Barker has built a reputation and has made himself an established figure in today’s society.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or PETA for short is the largest animal rights organization in the world.

Imagine this; You are wearing blinders next to your eyes, like the horses that pull the Amish buggy. You can’t see left, you can’t see right, you can only see straight forward to your set destination. This is how I imagine PETA and its followers when they wrote their most recent article about the FFA and their views about it. They only saw one view of the FFA and that was the only way they promoted it. You would think they would be thanking the FFA for all they do against animal abuse and their work of promoting animals as more than just “food” or a “project”

imal abuse has been an issue since the 12th century when dogs and cats were commonly found roaming the streets. Today it has become an ever growing issue which ranges from household pets to farm animals such as cows, chickens, horses. Animal abuse also is not just in America, such as bullfighting in Spain which began many centuries ago as a sacrifice to the gods. Is still practiced today as a form of entertainment. This kind of behavior does not seem right in our everyday life and just seems wrong because animals should be treated with kindness and not hatred.

As one of the most well-recognized animal rights organizations, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, better known as PETA, uses different rhetorical techniques in order to convey their message that “it is the right of all beings - human and non-human - to be free of harm.” (peta.org) PETA has made a significant impact on the animal rights movement over the past 36 years through their persistence, campaigning, and advocating for animal rights. According to PETA’s website they focus their attention on the four areas which produce the greatest amount of animal suffering: factory farms, the clothing trade, laboratories, and the entertainment industry. “Creative appeals of an advertisement [determine] the persuasive style of the message content. Message content consists of what is stated in the ad as well as the manner in which it was said. Persuasive or creative appeals of advertisements have been depicted in numerous ways including fear, humor, sex, and intellectual appeals” (Bebko, and Sciulli 23). PETA fights for ethical advancements with regard to humane treatment for animals while attempting to elicit the same compassion a person would have for another human being. It is the goal of PETA’s unorthodox rhetoric in videos, exposes, protests and campaigns to acknowledge animals rights issues to

In 2003, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) released a campaign called ‘Holocaust on Your Plate’. This display compared pictures of animals in a slaughterhouse against pictures of Nazi concentration camp. This campaign stemmed from Nobel Prize-winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote: ‘In relation to them [animals], all people are Nazis; for them it is an eternal Treblinka’ — a death camp in Poland” (CNN, 2003). It’s meant to emotionally target the viewer, similar to a scare tactic. It was also deeply insulting to many holocaust survivors. I believe this was a poor decision on PETA’s part, and the bad definitely outweighed the good for everyone.

PETA’s website have so many things that you can do and find out about and you have the options to volunteer, work at PETA, donate, or intern at PETA (PETA). The way that they do this is by having a big advertisement about animal cruelty and they also have plenty of pictures of animals being treated terribly because that way you can see their point of view and join them out of sympathy or common interest. In my opinion, I feel like PETA uses the prognostic and motivational frame. The reason for motivational frame is because they want to motivate you to join their protest events and protest against animal cruelty. There is this one incident where PETA wrote a letter to Homeland Security to stop the race because it is animal cruelty for forcing dogs to run more than a thousand miles in the ice cold weather (O’Keefe). They take action for what they feel are wrong and immediately take action to it. Also, I feel like their solution to everything is basically stop the animal cruelty by being vegan, treating animals with respect, and don’t wear them around your

Take PETA for example. What was once a small animal activist group, now has over 3 million members and supporters worldwide. PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Their slogan is “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any

The interest group that I will discuss in this paper is the one of the most well-known animal rights groups in the world; People for the ethical treatment of animals, commonly known as, PETA. Founded in March 1980 by Newkirk and fellow animal rights activist Alex Pacheco, the organization first caught the public's attention in the summer of 1981 during what became known as the Silver Spring monkeys case, a widely publicized dispute about experiments conducted on 17 macaque monkeys inside the Institute of Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, Maryland. The group first came to

and other acts in order for consumers to obtain their fur luxuries. I feel as though when PETA is

We eat meat, we use woollen clothes. Sometimes we buy pets, such as-cat, puppy, bird etc. as our hobby. Zoo was our favourite place when we were child. We pass our time watching various types of animals in National Geography channel. After all these, we never give our attention to what impact they have for our activities. There is always a question about ‘’animal rights’’. Though both human and animal are the creation of God, human being never faces that much argument about having rights but animal does. After studying on this topic, I understood that Most of the argument goes against having animal rights. There are less right preserved for non-human being in environmental ethics.

Introduction: I remembered how throughout my life I respected and admired people that tried to help animals in need. I remembered how I felt when I saw first-hand the result of abuse. I remembered how I wanted to help those poor animals that were being treated so cruelly. And for all that I remembered, I decided that the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) was the interest group I felt strongly for and chose to research.