Redefinition, Differentiation, and the Farm Animal Welfare Debate

Abstract

Animal welfare advocates have increased publics' scrutiny of the way animals are handled by everyone from pet owners to circuses to farmers. The case of farmer Gary Conklin illustrates a popular recent tactic of activists to secretly film working farms and then release videos that purport to show abuse. This essay uses the concepts of legitimacy and image restoration to examine how Conklin, with a small farming operation in Ohio, responded to allegations spread by social media. Two important principles emerged: first, an effective differentiation strategy for reducing offensiveness is “redefining the act,” a combination of image repair tactics where an undisputed fact is redefined and transformed with support from third-party affirmations. Second, even small organizations like this dairy cattle business face the same challenges and opportunities as larger organizational rhetors. The essay concludes with applications both for agriculture and for crisis communication scholars, asserting that agricultural enterprises will continue to face struggles over meaning that will require sophisticated methods of issue and crisis management.

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