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oai:recercat.cat:10230/596112025-12-22T13:44:16Zcom_2072_6col_2072_452952

Illusory authenticity: negotiating compassion in animal experimentation discourse Almiron, Núria, 1967- Fernández, Laura Rodrigo i Alsina, Miquel Animal experimentation animal research animal testing critical discourse analysis interest groups public relations speciesism strategic communication Society’s compassion towards nonhuman animals used in experimentation has grown exponentially. This paper adopts critical discourse analysis to examine how the animal experimentation industry negotiates this societal moral response. To this end, the discourse of the largest animal experimentation interest group in Spain has been studied. Our findings show that the industry, as represented by this interest group, does not negotiate compassion with authenticity but rather creates an illusion of it through opportunistic lexical choices and suppressions, including contradictions and incongruities. We conclude by defining such a discourse as illusory authenticity, a discourse with which the industry conveniently frames itself as altruistic and concerned about animal suffering while at the same time discouraging the public’s cultivation of compassion towards nonhuman animal suffering. This is done by means of perpetuating a logic that frames nonhuman animals as inferior beings whose existence is at the service of humanity. This research (within the project COMPASS, Lobbying and Compassion. Interest groups, discourse and nonhuman animals in Spain) was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and State Research Agency (Agencia Estatal de Investigación, AEI) under grant PID2020-118926RB-100/MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. 2024-03-28T13:21:24Z 2024-03-28T13:21:24Z 2024 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion Almiron N, Fernández L, Rodrigo-Alsina M. Illusory authenticity: negotiating compassion in animal experimentation discourse. Discourse Studies. 2024. DOI: 10.1177/14614456231219633 1461-4456 http://hdl.handle.net/10230/59611 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14614456231219633 eng Discourse Studies. 2024. 20 p. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PID2020-118926RB-100 Almiron N, Fernández L, Rodrigo-Alsina M. Illusory authenticity: Negotiating compassion in animal experimentation discourse. Discourse Studies. 2024. Copyright © 2024 SAGE Journals. DOI: 10.1177/14614456231219633 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess application/pdf application/pdf SAGE Publications