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Thick critiques, thin solutions: news media coverage of meatpacking plants in the COVID-19 pandemic

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  • Brody Trottier

    (University of Toronto)

Abstract

The human labor and animal inputs required to manufacture meat products are kept physically and symbolically distanced from the consumer. Recently however, meatpacking plants received significant news media attention when they emerged as hotpots for COVID-19 — threatening workers’ health, requiring plants to slow production, and forcing farmers to euthanize livestock. In light of these disruptions, this research asks: how did news media frame the impact of COVID-19 on the meat industry, and to what extent is a process of defetishization observed? Examining a sample of 230 news articles from coverage of US meatpacking plants and COVID-19 in 2020, I find that news media largely attributes the cause for the spread of COVID-19 in meatpacking plants to the history of exploitative working conditions and business practices of the meat industry. By contrast, the solutions offered to address these problems aim at alleviating the immediate obstacles posed by the pandemic and returning to, rather than challenging, the status quo. These short-run solutions for complex issues demonstrate the constraints in imagining alternatives to a problem rooted in capitalism. Furthermore, my analysis shows that animals are only made visible in the production process when their bodies become a waste product.

Suggested Citation

  • Brody Trottier, 2023. "Thick critiques, thin solutions: news media coverage of meatpacking plants in the COVID-19 pandemic," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(4), pages 1497-1512, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:40:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s10460-023-10452-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-023-10452-4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Noel Castree, 2001. "Commodity Fetishism, Geographical Imaginations and Imaginative Geographies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(9), pages 1519-1525, September.
    2. Ryan Gunderson, 2014. "Problems with the defetishization thesis: ethical consumerism, alternative food systems, and commodity fetishism," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(1), pages 109-117, March.
    3. Patricia Allen & Martin Kovach, 2000. "The capitalist composition of organic: The potential of markets in fulfilling the promise of organic agriculture," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 17(3), pages 221-232, September.
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