The Internet of Animals: Human-Animal Relationships in the Digital Age

Abstract

At the same time as humans are becoming increasingly interested and emotionally invested in nonhuman animals (including pets, farm animals, animals in captivity and wild animals), the internet, apps and digital devices are playing an ever-more prominent role in people’s everyday lives. This book examines the nexus between these two parallel but increasingly convergent social trends. The book engages with the emerging body of social theory that focuses on the sociomaterial dimensions of humans’ encounters with animals, objects, place and space, and the affective forces and capacities that are generated with and through these relationships. Playfully building on the concept of ‘The Internet of Things’, this book discusses the multiple dimensions of ‘The Internet of Animals’ and the complex relationships and feelings that have developed between people and animals online and through the use of digital devices. The Internet of Animals is the first book to bring together perspectives from sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, cultural geography, environmental humanities, critical animal studies and new media and internet studies to consider how these new digital technologies are contributing to major changes in human/animal relationships at both the micropolitical and macropolitical levels. These changes, which include moves towards viewing animals as human-like creatures and consequent greater interest in and advocacy for their welfare, have been facilitated, intensified and expanded by the affordances of new and emerging digital technologies. These technologies promote the rapid dissemination of images and information about animals across social networks, novel ways of monitoring animals’ activities and geolocation, using images of them to convey or modify human feeling and employing animal-like devices to support the care of people. As the book shows, in many ways, just as digital devices and media have allowed people to connect with each other globally, they have also strengthened people’s relationships to nonhuman animals. A huge variety of animals feature in the latest digital technologies. These devices and media include smartphone apps for monitoring animals’ health and activities, online forums and hashtags helping animal welfare activists to promote their cause, memes and GIFs featuring cute or funny animals, drones for monitoring the movements of livestock and wildlife, livestreaming documentation of animals in zoos or nature reserves, care robots in animal form – and many more. At a broader philosophical level, these changes raise key questions about definitions of the human, the nonhuman and the more-than-human, how these definitions are generated with and through digital media and devices and what the implications are for ethical and caring relationships between humans and other animal species.

Full text

11/04/2023, 09:31
New book now out: The Internet of Animals: Human-Animal Relationships in the Digital Age | This Sociological Life
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This Sociological Life
A blog by sociologist Deborah Lupton
March 14, 2023
New book now out: The Internet of Animals:
Human-Animal Relationships in the Digital Age
1 Comment
(hps://simplysociology.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/51zgq9wqayl-4.jpg)
This book has now been published. It is available from the Polity website here
(hps://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-internet-of-animals-human-animals-
relationships-in-the-digital-age--9781509552740). A video of me giving a talk about the book is here
(hps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGp-Ij8qgnI).
Here is the list of contents:
Introduction

11/04/2023, 09:31
New book now out: The Internet of Animals: Human-Animal Relationships in the Digital Age | This Sociological Life
https://simplysociology.wordpress.com/2023/03/14/new-book-now-out-the-internet-of-animals-human-animal-relationships-in-the-digital-age/
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1 Conceptualizing Humans, Animals and Human–Animal Relations
2 Animal Enthusiasts, Activism and Politics in Digital Media
3 The Quantified Animal and Dataveillance
4 Animal Cuteness, Therapy and Celebrity Online
5 Animal Avatars and Zoomorphic Robots
Conclusion: Reimagining Human–Animal Relations
Below is an excerpt from the Introduction chapter, explaining the main themes and issues discussed
in the book:
The Internet of Animals is the first book to bring together perspectives from across the humanities and
social sciences to consider how digital technologies are contributing to human-animal relationships at
both the micropolitical and macropolitical levels. It builds on and extends a growing interest in social
and cultural inquiry in: i) the digitization and datafication of humans and other animals with and
through new digital media and ‘smart’ devices; ii) the affective and embodied relationships between
humans and other animals; iii) the health and environmental crises in which human health and
wellbeing are inextricably entangled with other animals and living creatures; and iv) more-than-
human theoretical perspectives. The book delves into the ways that animals across a range of species
and in a multitude of spaces are represented and incorporated into various forms of digital
technologies, and the consequences for how we think and feel about as well as relate to and treat
other animals.
Across the book’s chapters, the broader socioeconomic, cultural, biological and geographical contexts
in which these technological interventions have emerged and are implemented are carefully
considered. Many animal species are becoming threatened by catastrophic changes to their habitats
and lives caused by humans, such as ecological degradation and pollution; climate change, global
warming and extreme weather events; and the clearing of forests to make way for industries or the
expansion of cities. Animals’ health and wellbeing have been severely undermined by these human-
wrought crises, including exacerbating their exposure to disease, depriving them of their usual food
sources, disrupting breeding cycles, accelerating species extinction and contributing to biodiversity
loss. Industries devoted to the mass production of digital technologies (mobile and other computing
devices, Wi Fi devices and digital data storage facilities) and to energy generation to power these
technologies, together with the accumulation of non-degradable ‘e-waste’ from discard devices and
contribution to landfill toxins, make a massive contribution to these detrimental effects on planetary
health. Digital media play a major role in drawing publics’ aention to cases of animal mistreatment
and cruelty, but also contribute to the objectification of animals and the vilification of species deemed
to be threats to human welfare or the economy, requiring tight containment or extermination.
… Throughout the book I analyse the content and use of these devices, software and media from a
sociocultural perspective, identifying implications for human-animal relationships and for generating
ideas about future developments for digital technologies that have the potential to contribute to both
human and nonhuman animal flourishing across the world. I argue that the ways in which animals
are portrayed, monitored and cared for by humans using digital media and devices have significant
implications for how humans and animals will live together in the near future: including human and
animal health and wellbeing, environmental sustainability and activism, and industries related to
digital technology development, animal care, animal protection, food production and consumption as
well as smart farming, smart homes and smart cities.

11/04/2023, 09:31
New book now out: The Internet of Animals: Human-Animal Relationships in the Digital Age | This Sociological Life
https://simplysociology.wordpress.com/2023/03/14/new-book-now-out-the-internet-of-animals-human-animal-relationships-in-the-digital-age/
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… a series of questions are addressed, as follows: How are human-animal relationships changing,
and how are digital media and devices contributing to this change? What do humans and other
animals lose and gain when animals are digitized and datafied? What are the implications of a more-
than-human approach for ethical and caring relationships between humans and other animal species?
What are the implications for both human and animal health and wellbeing – and at a larger scale, for
planetary health?
In addressing these questions, I engage with the expanding body of more-than-human theory that
focuses on the embodied and multisensory dimensions of people’s encounters with digital
technologies and digital data, and the affective forces and capacities that are generated with and
through these relationships. My approach to digitization and datafication recognises that digital
technologies and digital data are vibrant agents in the lives of humans and animals, configuring
animal-human-digital assemblages that are constantly changing as technologies come together with
humans and animals in place, space and time.
… Chapter 1 introduces the foundational concepts and theoretical perspectives on human-animals
relations offered from relevant scholarship across the humanities and social sciences and discusses
how they contribute to the key issues and themes discussed in the book. The next four chapters focus
on specific ways in which animals are portrayed in digital media and monitored with the use of
‘smart’ technologies. Chapter 2 addresses the topic of animal activism and other political issues
concerning humans’ treatment of and relationships with animals, including contestation and conflicts
between actors in this online space. In Chapter 3, the plethora of rationales, imaginaries and practices
configuring the dataveillance of animals are examined: including those devices designed for caring
for pets or protection of wildlife as well as technologies incorporated into ‘smart farming’ initiatives.
Chapter 4 focuses on the affective dimensions of cuteness and celebrity as they are expressed in
relation to animals in digital media, as well as the positioning of animals as therapeutic objects. The
representation of animals in computer games and zoomorphic robots are the subject of Chapter 5.
While these digital technologies may seem quite distinct from each other, the strong influence of
Japanese culture is evident in both modes for digitizing animals. The brief conclusion chapter
summarise the main points made in the book and provokes thinking about the futures of the Internet
of Animals, with a particular focus on the use of digital technologies in arts-based initiatives that seek
to aune humans to their role as merely one animal species in complex multispecies ecosystems.
Posted by Deborah Lupton in digital cultures, digital data, digital sociology, New books, social
media, sociology, sociology of science and technology
Tagged: animal activism, animal ethics, animal studies, cute studies, Deborah Lupton, digital
cultures, digital media, digital sociology, environmental humanities, game studies, human-animal
relations, robot studies, social media, the internet of animals, the quantified animal
One thought on “New book now out: The Internet of
Animals: Human-Animal Relationships in the Digital Age”
1. Deborah Lupton says:
April 4, 2023 at 11:51 pm Edit
Reblogged this on Vitalities Lab.
Reply

11/04/2023, 09:31
New book now out: The Internet of Animals: Human-Animal Relationships in the Digital Age | This Sociological Life
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