ANIMAL TESTING 1

Animal Testing

Bianca Robinson

University of Texas at El Paso

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Introduction

The cute furry friends you have living at your home are one of the luckiest animals

compared to the ones that are facing cruel conditions in laboratories. Animals are used for

product testing and are constantly facing harmful treatments. In both the video, Lush Fighting

Animal Testing: Live Demonstration at Regents Street and in the article, Harm and Suffering,

it is expressed how horrible these animals get treated when they are facing animal tests. These

two different genres share the terrible experiences that animals face during animal testing, but

when compared, the iconography does a better job of persuading people because it connects to

the audience visually.

The Typography

In this persuasive article, Harm and Suffering, the organization NEAVS, explains the

painful protocols and the horrible daily lives that these animals face during animal testing. It is

understood that laboratories follow certain protocols that call for extreme measures of

mistreatment on animals. This is seen through, These experiments included immobilizing mice

and rats in tubes, shocking their feet, suspending them by their tails, and forcing them to swim to

avoid drowning, which shows the harsh environments that animals, like these mice, are

experiencing on a daily basis (NEAVS, 2012). Not only are the protocols that are followed by

laboratories cruel, but also are the conditions animals face when they are not being tested on.

These animals do not get to live the normal lives like other animals because they spend most of

their lives locked up in a cage. Sometimes some of them may never get to experience fresh air or

sunlight (NEAVS, 2012). Even when these animals are not being tested on they still experience

the same horrible conditions. For example, Standard lab conditions, such as small, crowded

cages, lack of enrichment, loud noises, and bright lights out of sync with natural lighting are all
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known to create stress in animals who in turn show physical symptoms of the stress, including

chronic inflammatory conditions,(NEAVS, 2012) which reveals that as long as these animals

are in the environment of a laboratory they will continue to suffer due to the mistreatment. This

article explains the different conditions that animals face during animal testing to convince the

audience to take action and be apart of the NEAVS organization to put a stop to animal testing.

The Iconography

In the video by LUSH, Lush Fighting Animal Testing: Live Demonstration at Regents

Street, the audience sees with there own eyes how terrible the actions taken on animals during

animal testing are. The only difference is instead of experimenting on an animal they use a real

life human. They performed this experiment behind a glass window inside a LUSH cosmetic

store. The woman that was used for this cosmetic testing was mimicking an animal. She

experienced being tied down with hooks attached to her mouth to make sure she would not

move. The whole experiment on this woman followed almost the same protocols as if it were on

an animal. The act of using a human made a difference on the audiences reactions because they

were able connect to the pain that this human was undergoing. The point of this video is to

convince the audience to take animals out of cosmetic testing and put a stop to the killing of

millions animals every year for these experiments (LUSH, 2012).

Compare and Contrast

These two genres expressed the same idea of the cruelty of animal testing. They both

share the conditions that animals face on the daily bases. The main difference is the way this

information is presented which plays a big role in persuading the audience. Since the video by

LUSH visually informs the audience it gets the message across in a way that intrigues the

audience. On the other hand, the article by NEAVS, just explains the torture animals encounter
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rather than actually showing the audience. This is because as humans we are visual learners, and

this visual stimulation triggers the audience to take action. Although the article does go into

greater detail of the cruelty that animals undergo during animal testing, the video was more

successful in attracting the audiences attention.

Audience and Purpose

Both of these genres were targeting people who are able to take action and put an end to

animal testing. The typographys purpose was to persuade people to be apart of this NEAVS

organization and to also donate money to help this organization grow to stop animal testing. On

the other hand the purpose of the iconography was to persuade the audience to sign a petition to

help end animal testing.

Ethos, Pathos, and Logos

The article, Harm and Suffering describes how animals are treated when they undergo

animal testing. This article is targeting mainly anyone out there interested on making a difference

to stop animal testing and join in on the movement. In order to persuade the audience the author

used the persuasive elements. The emotional persuasion seen in this article is when the author

describes the horrible actions taken on these animals. It is seen through, It can include protocols

that cause severe suffering, such as long-term social isolation, electric shocks, withholding of

food and water, or repeated breeding and separating of infants from mothers,(NEAVS, 2012)

which describes the battle that animals are constantly fighting during animal testing. The

organization inserted all the horrible experiences animals go through to emotionally persuade the

audience to put a stop to animal testing. The author also uses some facts to persuade the audience

to help animals by using information like, Every year in the U.S., over 25 million animals are

used in biomedical experimentation, product and cosmetic testing, and science education, which
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opens the audiences eyes to the immensity of the problem that is animal testing (NEAVS, 2012).

Therefore, the audience is convinced that there needs to be an end to animal testing. Not only do

they use logic to persuade the audience they also use ethos. This persuasive element is seen in

this article by having the organization name in the background in big letters to give this

organization credibility. All these persuasive elements played a big role in persuading the

audience to take part in helping these animals that are facing these tests, but the iconography

used the persuasive elements in a better way because it grabs the viewers attention.

The video,

Conclusion

Both of these genres achieved its purpose and were able to evoke the audiences emotions

and persuade them to take action to put a stop to animal testing. The iconography was more

successful than the typography because it provided a visual to the audience and they were able to

see the horrible actions that are taken on the poor animals. The typography explained the

measures of cruelty that animals face on the daily basis in great detail, but the fact that there was

no visual to give the audience a better understanding of animal cruelty made the iconography a

more successful genre. People usually are able to comprehend better and are easily moved when

the can visually connect.

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References:

L. (2012, April 25). Lush Fighting Animal Testing: Live Demonstration at Regents Street.
Retrieved February 03, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4K9iSyj_lk

N. (2012, June 4). Animals in Science / Research. Retrieved February 22, 2017, from
http://www.neavs.org/research/harm-suffering
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