PETA: The People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals

The Animal Protection Movement also underwent the Bureaucratic stage, which is the third stage of development of social movements in sociology. The bureaucratization stage of social movements is the formalization stage that is characterized by high level of organization as swell as coalitions. As such, this makes the social movement a powerful political force. As explained in the book, Thinking Sociology, this is the stage that is symbolized by a myriad of social movements dedicated to animal rights show that this particular concern will not go away (Carl, et al., 2011). In this stage of the Animal Protection Movement, there was significant media visibility, especially in the 1980s. In addition to that vigorous competition among the organizations in this juncture symbolize high level of efficiency in the movement. Strategic thinking by animal advocates was also adopted as an approach to enable justice-based movements that influenced drastic victories for the movement in that decade. Nevertheless, this stage of the Animal Welfare Movements was marked by extensive changes in organizations and the growth of active supporter base for the movement.

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.

PETA, an animal rights organization, has been known over the past several decades to post racy ads. In June of 2013, PETA launched an ad with the purpose of getting its audience to go vegan. The ad is a photo of a toddler with a lit cigar in his mouth with the quote next to it, “You Wouldn’t Let Your Child Smoke. Like smoking, eating meat increases the risk of heart disease and cancer”. The ad included “Go vegan!” in the bottom right corner with the organizations logo next to it. PETA is trying to send a message to its viewers to stop eating animals. The attention drawing ad evokes an emotional response, contains logical reasoning and is from a credible source.

PETA’s main principle is that “Animals are not ours to consume, wear, experiment on, or for the use of our entertainment.” In layman’s terms, animals should be able live their lives without interference from humans.

In the United States, hunters are being interrogated by an ignorant organization better known as PETA, which stands for "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals." I believe this uneducated group of people are lacking knowledge of what an avid hunter actually does. The definition of a hunter is not just a person that hunts. A true hunter is a skilled human being or animal that is willing to kill for an apparent necessity. Although PETA has over 3 million members and supporters, there are over 20 million active hunters in America. (Hunters against PETA) The amount of hunters are significantly higher than PETA members. PETA should not be against wild game hunters in America because of the economic growth, game population

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”

The Peta Ad is ineffective because it is trying to convince the reader to turn vegan but he's not giving a valid reason why since he is using child abuse as an example and he doesnt know the real meaning of it. For example in the Peta Ad it states, " Parents who allow children to eat meat are guilty of child abuse." This shows that they don't know the real meaning of child abuse because when you are being abused you are not happy but the children are happy eating meat. Child abuse is when they are harrassing the children and doing things against their own will but in this case they are eating what they like. Giving children meat is not child abuse because you are giving them what they are asking for, it would be child abuse if you do not feed

There are an abundance of homeless, abused, and overlooked animals in the world who are in need of care. In order to help these animals, the ASPCA, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, organization created a commercial in the intent to raise money for these animals. They are addressing the part of the audience who are animal lovers. While the ASPCA commercial has a noble cause, it uses depressing scenes of homeless animals to play people’s emotions and has a celebrity endorsement to build trustworthiness in their cause while giving very few facts to support the commercial.

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

For years animal testing has been happening, with the same animals being used. Instead of using a variety of animals, science labs stick to certain species. PETA names the main core animals being abused are: mice, rats, primates, cats, and dogs. PETA has revealed mice and rats are used for more than just toxicology, they say:

The study of good and bad, right and wrong, moral principles or value held by a person or society, promoting human welfare, maximizing freedom minimizing pain and suffering is called ethics. The discipline that studies the moral relationship of human beings and also the value and moral status of the environment and its non-human contents is called environmental ethics. It considers the ethical relationship between the humans and the environment. Animal and animal rights are the highlighted topic in the environmental ethics.