Glenn Reading Response

Before you Read 

1. The animal is animated. It makes me feel like its a "fake" food for a "fake" human. The company is not serious about the animal or the food product.

Summary

In Glenn's article, "Constructing Consumables and Consent:  A Critical Analysis of Factory Farm Industry Discourse", she discusses what goes on behind the scene in food factories and how they hide it from their consumers. They use advertising to hid the bad things that happen to the animals/food. She compares both sides of the argument, but mainly explains her views and findings on the bad side of the food companies. Glenn wants animals to be treated as animals, not something to merely make a profit off of. She is writing to anyone that is interested in discovering what goes on in food companies.

Synthesis

Glenn relates to Porter and Pollan. Glenn has a very clear discourse community and that goes right back to Porter. Glenn also relates to today's second reading by Pollan. Pollan discusses food as something to sell in quantity. This relates to Glenn because she talks about the mass production of food dealing with advertising in companies.

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
There are many different relationships we make with them. Ex: food, pets, etc.	“That is to say, even though they exist as beings-in-the-world with their own purposes and value,  it is through the lenses of human purpose and values that we construct a relationship with them” (145).
Advertising is doublespeak. Companies trick the public consumers.	“William Lutz notes that doublespeak is not so much the use of these techniques per se;  rather, it is the intent to deceive by using these linguistic forms that constitutes doublespeak” (147).
Companies will say anything to make it sound ok. Many factory farms do not have single stalls, and if they do they are so tight the animals can’t even move around.	“Calling the conditions merely “unaesthetic,” industry insiders suggest that “each calf ‘has its own private stall’ that ‘features’ partitions for ‘privacy’”” (149).
Having a cartoon desiring that it wants to be eaten is just weird. Hahahaa	“The principals involved in creating a character that sells us on exploiting it for its products or killing and eating it is similar to an invented creature called a “schmoo”” (151).
I think this is a little extreme, I agree that harming/scaring animals is bad, but I will still eat them.	“Because the use of factory farm animal products supports a clearly cruel and environmentally dangerous industry, choosing nonuse is an ethically sound choice” (154).

Question

QD 1. "Factory Farm Discourse" is doublespeak. Companies use words in their advertising that may be technically true, but clearly make whats going on sound way better to the consumer. Its bad because we think we're eating clean food because it says so on the package, when really we're not. 

Thoughts

I liked this article. It was relateable to me because I have also done research on food companies, such as Tyson chicken. I find it interesting to actually know where my food is coming from. She made me think about haw advertising has an impact of the consumer.