Using Visual Media To Highlight Meat’s Environmental Impact
There is strong evidence that meat production has major negative environmental impacts. However, research shows that people tend to underestimate this relationship and instead give more importance to factors such as food seasonality and plastic packaging. Past research suggests that providing more information about meat and the environment can help decrease people’s intention to eat meat, but not necessarily meat purchases in real-life settings.
This study aims to explore whether different video styles can increase knowledge about the environmental impact of meat and, in turn, decrease meat consumption. It considers changes in participants’ perceptions before and after being exposed to a video as well as demographic differences.
The researchers showed either one of two intervention videos or a control video to 189 participants recruited from a university and vocational schools in Germany, divided into 3 groups. One intervention video was a 25-minute clip from the documentary Cowspiracy, and the other was an online lecture on sustainable nutrition — both clips focused solely on the environmental argument against meat consumption. The control video was about Bosphorus bridges in Istanbul.
Participants in all three groups completed a questionnaire before watching the videos, and then one week and one year after. Out of the 189 people who took part in the study, only 80 completed the questionnaire after one year.
Before the videos were shown, participants were asked to rank the environmental benefits of food-related choices. Avoiding plastic packaging was ranked highest followed by buying local food, avoiding aircraft-imported food, eating seasonal, eating less meat, and, lastly, buying organic.
None of the videos led to significant changes in meat consumption according to the participants’ self-reports. However, the results showed that watching Cowspiracy led to a significant increase in the perceived environmental benefits of meat reduction one week after watching the video, whereas the lecture on sustainable nutrition did not. The authors speculate that the difference was a result of how facts were presented in the two interventions (Cowspiracy was more of an entertaining story compared to the lecture). In fact, those who watched Cowspiracy ranked meat reduction as the most important food-related choice to minimize environmental impacts one week later.
After one year, awareness of meat’s environmental impact increased, and meat consumption decreased in all three groups compared to one year prior — but both results weren’t statistically significant due to the low sample size. The authors speculate these changes could be an effect of slowly increasing awareness of environmental protection throughout Germany. They also point out that the sample of people who responded to the year-later questionnaire tended to have stronger environmental beliefs to begin with, which may have impacted the results.
While the study is interesting, it’s important to bear in mind some of the limitations. For example, the dietary information was self-reported, which isn’t as accurate as measuring people’s actual meat intake. The authors also didn’t measure the type of meat being consumed, so it’s possible that participants reduced meat they felt was harmful to the environment (e.g., “red meat”) while increasing other types of meat (e.g., chicken meat). The participants also weren’t representative of the larger German population, so the results can’t be applied to the rest of the country.
For animal advocates, this study suggests that engaging videos may be more effective than drier, more academic forms of communication for raising awareness about the impacts of meat consumption. However, the authors point out that more detailed studies on this topic are needed, such as the types of visual content that work best and how to encourage actual meat reduction that goes beyond awareness alone.
https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-02-2020-0138