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Cecchelin, Giulia | Bartoletti, Roberta

What pets want : le relazioni tra umani e animali nella comunicazione del pet food

2016 - Franco Angeli

28-49 p.

  • In our paper we will focus on pets as food consumers in order to understand the transformation that has been occurring in human-animal relations in the past decades. In the framework of consumer society, we wonder if pets are considered to be right's holders as consumers. And if they are, what are the features of these new consumers? We addressed these research questions from a producer's perspective. We analysed the Guidelines of the European Pet Food Industry Federation and a sample of pet food packaging being marketed in Italy at the moment. We found that health is the value most strongly promoted, followed by taste. An affectionate and responsible domination is the prevailing relationship between humans and their companion animals, but we notice also the emergence of an uncanny figure of the pet, which is both tamed and wild at the same time. [Publisher's Text].

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Sociologia della comunicazione : 52, 2, 2016