Animals on Television

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Dumb

   • Brett Mills

   Pages 1-43

3. Human

   • Brett Mills

   Pages 45-78

4. Wild

   • Brett Mills

   Pages 79-112

5. Zoo

   • Brett Mills

   Pages 113-145

6. Pet

   • Brett Mills

   Pages 147-178

7. Meat

   • Brett Mills

   Pages 179-207

8. Conclusion: Undumb

   • Brett Mills

   Pages 209-230

9. Back Matter

   Pages 231-279

   PDF

This book is the first in-depth study of the representation of animals on television. It explores the variety of ways animals are represented in audio-visual media, including wildlife documentaries and children’s animated series, and the consequences these representations have for those species. Brett Mills discusses key ideas and approaches essential for thinking about animals drawing on relevant debates in philosophy, politics, gender studies, humanism and posthumanism, and ethics. The chapters examine different animal representations, focusing on zoos, pets, wildlife and meat. They present case studies, including discussions of Peppa Pig, The Hunt and The Dog Whisperer. This book will be of interest to readers exploring media studies, contemporary television, animal studies, and debates about representation.

• Animals
• Television
• representation of animals
• dumb animals
• animals on TV
• animal studies
• Anthropocentrism
• meat on screen
• animal documentary
• posthumanism
• Peppa Pig
• The Dog Whisperer
• Animal television programmes
• humanism

“Mills’s book has much to offer those interested in rethinking animal representation and human–animal relationships. The breadth of his scholarly engagement is particularly impressive: Mills brings together work from fields such as the sciences, ethics, disability studies and philosophy, along with frameworks from film and television studies. His ability, both to make complex ideas accessible to non-specialists … and to demonstrate how disparate disciplines effectively ask the same sets of questions, offers a model for the kind of interdisciplinary scholarship to which many of us aspire.” (Zoë Shacklock, Critical Studies in Television, Vol. 14 (3), September, 2019)

• School of Art, Media and American Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

  Brett Mills

Brett Mills is Senior Lecturer in Television Studies at the University of East Anglia, UK. His work on animals in media has been published in Screen, Continuum, Critical Studies in Television, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Environmental Communication and Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. He has been profiled in the Journal of Wild Culture.

Policies and ethics