Conflicts between agriculture and society: the role of lobby groups in the animal welfare discussion and their impact on meat consumption

Conflicts between agriculture and society are growing in industrialized countries, especially with respect to animal husbandry. Against this background, the present study has the aims to analyze the level of agreement of German citizens with the positions of animal rights, consumer protection, and farmer lobby groups and how this agreement or disagreement affects citizens’ future meat consumption. To achieve these goals, reference is made to the Framing Theory and to the Theory of Planned Behavior. The original contribution of the approach presented here is the integration of both theories in one empirical study, which gives the opportunity to put the impact of public relations activities of different lobby groups into perspective. As can be shown based on a survey among 498 consumers, the intention to reduce meat consumption is only indirectly influenced by media frames generated by lobby groups. Behavioral control and subjective norm represent the most important direct influencing factors. However, the frames, namely the moral and the economic pressure frame, have a strong impact on attitude towards meat consumption.