Explaining ‘Faunalytics Explains’
Faunalytics’ mission has always been to help animal advocates be more effective by making relevant research and data accessible to all. We want you to have the resources you need to inform yourself and the public about the plight of animals, and to be aware of the best strategies and tactics to reduce animal suffering in an impactful way. We enact this mission through our various programs, such as our Original Research, Research Library, Fundamentals, and more.
As we work hard to fulfill our mission, we’re always listening to user feedback, especially from our annual Community Survey. Something that we’ve heard often is that you want more visual resources, and even more digestible summaries of important data. Knowing that our library summaries usually take about 5-10 minutes to read, we set out last year to create a video series that provides the most important data from a given study in 2-3 minutes, with links to the original works so that advocates can dig deeper into the data they find useful.
The result is a series is called Faunalytics Explains. Below we give you an overview of the series thus far, and the broad types of subject matter that we’re trying to tackle with these videos, including our latest video being released today!
Strategies & Tactics
Just like our Research Library and Original Research programs, the majority of our Faunalytics Explains videos will explore issues affecting farmed animals, since they are used and abused in the greatest numbers. Because our mission is focused on increasing effectiveness and impact, we want to be sure to provide viewers with quick takeaways regarding effective strategies and tactics for making a difference.
In our first three videos, we explored: how the foreground and background of farmed animal images can affect the reception of advocacy materials; subtle but effective ways of presenting veg food options to increase orders; and strategies for when and how to use graphic images in our work (the latter video was also translated into Spanish and given a new narration by the study’s original author). In each of these cases, the studies provide direct and actionable advice that advocates can use to improve their impact.
Clarifying Common Questions
While points on strategies and tactics are vital, it’s also important to inform advocates with answers to common questions that may have an impact on their advocacy, whether directly or indirectly. As the veg landscape is constantly shifting and expanding, we’re all constantly learning, and sharing that knowledge is of the utmost importance.
In that spirit, the fourth and fifth videos in the Faunalytics Explains series look at two common questions veg advocates have had lately: do “animal-based” names for plant-based foods (for example, calling veg items “sausage”) confuse consumers, and does the anticipation of stigmatization prevent people from going veg? In both cases, the studies help to provide information that can help advocates better frame their messaging.
Non-Farmed Animal Topics
Finally, while our primary focus will remain on farmed animals and effective veg advocacy, we plan to expand the series out into other subject matter such as wild animal suffering, conservation issues, companion animal issues, science and research animals, and more. There is so much we can do to help those animals, and we’ll highlight studies in our series that help advocates better understand how to make a difference.
In our latest video, we look at a study reviewing the effectiveness of conservation action from the past 30 years. The study and video look specifically at broad UN policies and targets relating to the conservation of at-risk species, and expert analysis about just how much these policies and targets have had an impact on saving such species. We highlight this study in particular to give a hopeful message that conservation action does work, but also a reminder that much more needs to be done.
If you find our Faunalytics Explains series useful in your advocacy, we would love it if you shared any of the individual videos above. To check out the entire series, we’ve made a YouTube playlist of all of the collected videos. As always, be sure to subscribe to our channel to be the first to learn of new videos when they arrive!