I thought that I would take a look at the dolphin poster project as well as the networking poster project (mainly because they are the two that I remember). At first, I was struggling with how I could possibly draw some connections between the two posters--then it hit me: how did I even hear about the dolphin slaughter in the first place? Well, most of my friends heard it from South Park, but I don't watch TV so instead.... I heard it from Facebook since at least four of my friends made references to "fuck you dolphin" in their status updates.
It was then that I realized how quickly people became aware of the situation do to the spread of virtual information on the internet. This goes right back to issues people have with things like Twitter and Facebook and whether or not they are credible sources for news. Ten or fifteen years ago no one would have known that that were eating flipper when they made their tuna fish sandwiches, not unless an article showed up about it in the newspaper or a news station picked up on it. However, now people can just go check their twitter updates to catch of glimpse of what is happening then move on over to their favorite 'legitimate' online news source for the full story. That being said, how do you know if the source is an established company with professional reporters or simply the guy who blogs for a hobby?
So, people find out that they are eating flipper, why does the world freak out about this? Are they saturated with HFCS?? Is the slaughtering of the dolphins any less humane than the slaughtering of every other fish that we eat? I can assure you that the nets with thousands of fish in them are no better than killing dolphins. We freak out because they didn't tell us that we were eating dolphins--as if no culture could possibly eat them. Yet, most people couldn't pronounce half of the ingredients on most of their everyday food, let alone explain the origins. Who is to say that one of your ingredients isn't a carefully disguised way of saying 'spark the dog' or 'bald eagle'. Then again, this goes to show you how powerful the speed of information over the internet is through the many social networks.
I think that the radical disconnect between eating species that we view as "companionate" like dolphins, dogs, or cats and eating different species is really interesting because it shows the inconsistencies that a lot of us feel about eating animals generally. Which is why I think that movies like Bambi or Babe probably produced a lot of vegetarians (even if this was a temporary consequence).
ReplyDeleteSomething that didn't make it on our poster about dolphins was a pretty interesting study that was done on people in and around Taiji who eat dolphin. The concern about eating dolphin usually boils down not just to information (or lack thereof) but also to mercury toxicity (which accumulates as you move up the marine food chain). After a mini-outcry after the release of The Cove, a study was done to test for mercury levels and all residents have a higher than average mercury result BUT the 43 who showed results high enough to cause neurological damage didn't display any symptoms of mercury poisoning, which some of the researchers chalked up to the fact that they ingested it through their food source instead of through environmental contaminants. Source: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100510a1.html