UK Newspapers Down on Vegans

A recent study in The British Journal of Sociology determined that national newspapers in the UK published a greater number of negative than positive articles about vegans in 2007. Researchers Matthew Cole and Karen Morgan discovered that almost 75 percent of articles about veganism featured negative portrayals, such as anti-vegan stereotypes, ridicule of plant-based diets, and characterization of vegans as hostile. The study used 397 articles from 19 newspapers, classifying less than six percent as positive and about 20 percent as neutral. “Vegaphobic discourse facilitates the continued normalization of human violence on an unimaginable scale,” concluded the study. “Instead of veganism being used as an opportunity to open up debates about our relationships with nonhuman animals, it is abused as a reason not to care, or even think, about these issues.”