“Story-Networks” of Livestock and Climate Change: Actors, Their Artifacts, and the Shaping of Urban Print Media

Abstract

Despite widespread media coverage of livestock-related issues and growing scientific evidence linking meat production and climate change, systematic content analysis of this relationship in media coverage has been surprisingly minimal. In this article, we combine actor-network theory with framing theory to develop the basis for “story-networks”—networks of actants and artifacts that shape how a media report or “story” is framed. We coded livestock-related articles from a major U.S. newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, over the 1999–2010 period to understand how various actants and artifacts shaped different story-networks. Just 5% of all livestock articles addressed connections with climate change; these articles focused on technology, lifestyle, or policy. Distinctive story-networks characterized each category, framing the livestock–climate change linkage as an issue to be addressed through either technological innovation, individual lifestyle choices, or policy action. In each story-network type, varying configurations of actants and artifacts were involved, including the cattle themselves.

Keywords:

• actor-network theory (ANT)
• climate change
• framing theory
• livestock
• story-networks

Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Notes

This involved an e-mail hacking at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, leading to allegations that scientists had manipulated climate change data to suppress critics. Subsequent investigations found no evidence of fraud or misconduct.

Gouveia and Juska (2002, 375) employ “taming” as a metaphor that describes an actor's exertion of power over another that captures “the coercive nature of disciplining technologies deployed … to manufacture consent among humans and non-humans.”