eprintid: 10180695
rev_number: 6
eprint_status: archive
userid: 699
dir: disk0/10/18/06/95
datestamp: 2023-11-07 13:15:32
lastmod: 2023-11-07 13:15:32
status_changed: 2023-11-07 13:15:32
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
sword_depositor: 699
creators_name: Bryson, K
creators_name: Soligo, C
creators_name: Sommer, V
title: Interrogating Boundaries against Animals and Machines: Human Speciesism in British Newspapers
ispublished: pub
divisions: UCL
divisions: B03
divisions: C03
divisions: F22
keywords: Arts & Humanities, Humanities, Multidisciplinary, Arts & Humanities - Other Topics, Ingroup, outgroup, bias, prejudice, binary, essentialism, ambiguity tolerance, Human-Animal studies, primatology, cyborg, Human-Machine studies, speciesism, human-computer interaction, AI, UNIQUELY HUMAN EMOTIONS, PSYCHOLOGICAL ESSENTIALISM, PREJUDICE, AMBIGUITY, DEHUMANIZATION, ATTRIBUTION, INTOLERANCE, PERCEPTION, TOLERANCE, ATTITUDES
note: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
abstract: Humans favor and venerate their ingroups, while disregarding outgroups to the degree of dehumanizing them. We explore the social construction of such boundaries and its associated speciesism toward two nonhuman outgroups: animals and machines. For this, we analyzed UK newspaper coverages of the binaries Human–Animal and Human–Machine between 1995 and 2010. We quantified if and how tolerance toward ambiguous concepts that challenge and expand definitions of humanness (e.g., nonhuman primates, cyborgs) varied across time as well as with journalist gender, political leaning, and expertise. In this analysis, the ca. 1100 individual journalists stood as proxies for the British public and therefore as a human-ingroup subset. We found more tolerance toward intermediaries in broadsheet newspapers, females, and subject experts, as opposed to tabloids, males, and subject novices. Moreover, ambiguity tolerance hit a low during the year 2000, likely due to Western sociopolitical turbulence—potentially including wider societal stress over the landmark millennium year itself—attesting that ingroups become more closed during stressful times. Compared with the plasticity of the Human–Animal dichotomy, the Human–Machine binary was more rigid, indicating that the relative novelty of IT developments triggers increased caution and anxiety. Our research suggests that cognitive mechanisms facilitating human-ingroup protection are deep-rooted, albeit malleable according to changing socioeconomic conditions.
date: 2020-12-16
date_type: published
publisher: PENN STATE UNIV PRESS
official_url: https://doi.org/10.5325/JPOSTSTUD.4.2.0129
oa_status: green
full_text_type: other
language: eng
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
verified: verified_manual
elements_id: 2005378
doi: 10.5325/JPOSTSTUD.4.2.0129
lyricists_name: Soligo, Christophe
lyricists_id: CSOLI59
actors_name: Soligo, Christophe
actors_id: CSOLI59
actors_role: owner
full_text_status: public
publication: Journal of Posthuman Studies
volume: 4
number: 2
pagerange: 129-165
issn: 2472-4513
citation:        Bryson, K;    Soligo, C;    Sommer, V;      (2020)    Interrogating Boundaries against Animals and Machines: Human Speciesism in British Newspapers.                   Journal of Posthuman Studies , 4  (2)   pp. 129-165.    10.5325/JPOSTSTUD.4.2.0129 <https://doi.org/10.5325/JPOSTSTUD.4.2.0129>.       Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10180695/1/Interogating%20Boundaries%20against%20Animals%20and%20Machines_accepted.pdf