The social construction of companion animal abuse in Hong Kong : public perception, media representations and government policies

Abstract

This study aims at conducting a thorough investigation into a comparative study between old and new social construction regarding companion animal abuse in Hong Kong (HK). In general impression, Hong Kong society seemed apathetic to animal abuse cases and less hostile to the companion animal abusers in previous years. Nevertheless, the situation seems to be tremendously changed in present days. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to see the frequent media’s reporting of companion animal abuse cases and the intense social discussion and contemplation about the seriousness of animal abuse’s implication in Hong Kong. Despite the transformation of social construction regarding animal abuse in Hong Kong, there are few researches focusing on analysing the reasons and influences of such change in social construction with regard to public’s reactions (including pets owners & non-pets owners) towards animal abuse, media’s representation about animal abusers and relevant government policies’ perspectives in responding to the new social construction about animal abuse in Hong Kong. In order to research the implication of the change of social construction, this study held qualitative interviews (semi-structured) with six social stakeholders, which shared first-hand experience and second-hand data in animal abuse issue. They are Hong Kong pet owners and non-pets owners from different demographics; animal care organisations, including those cooperated with Hong Kong government and those have not been associated with the government. Given that pets owners and non-pets owners derive from general public while official and non-official animal care organisations refer to social institutions, this research targets to find out whether the recipient side, i.e. HK public agrees with the social construction amplifier, i.e. media’s representation about animal abuse, and the government policy initiator and executor, i.e. HK government’s administrative direction in animal protection aspects. Although there are different backgrounds and knowledge level among interview targets, their responses likewise indicated that the transformation from apathetic to positive reactions of the Hong Kong society towards animal abuse symbolise the progress of civilisation and morality standard in local context. Nevertheless, the interviewees expressed different perceptions about the roles of media in reporting the animal abuse news and emerged discrepancies regarding the effectiveness of Hong Kong government’s policy in responding the seriousness of animal abuse. Although the public’s animal protection awareness had been enhanced in these ten years, the deterrence of animal cruelty ordinance and the community involvement in unveiling the animal cases to law enforcement agencies seem to lag behind by falling short to the civilised society’s expectation. Alongside the overall findings of this research indicated that the Hong Kong government and mainstream media are still required to live up to public’s expectation in contending to companion animal cruelty issue, future researches need to be conducted in figuring out the concrete policy measures that Hong Kong government could further implement, and the more effective media representation ways of revealing the serious implications of animal cruelty to the general public. These kinds of findings could be obtained by interviewing more stakeholders from formal institutions, e.g. lawmakers from legislative council, and stakeholders from animal care fields, e.g. various animal care organizations designated for specific companion animals other than dogs and cats, e.g. rabbits, frogs, snakes.