http://web.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/reporting_of_contagious_diseases1.

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From Flu-Like Virus to Deadly Disease: Ideology and the

Media
Arran Stibbe, Ph.D.
Chikushi Jogakuen University, Japan
Volume 6, Number 2, Summer, 2001

Introduction
In the film Outbreak, the fictional nightmare of the military treating an outbreak of
Ebola as a war, and killing thousands to stop the spread of the virus, was narrowly averted by
a heroic Dustin Hoffman (see Stibbe 1999). In Britain, a similar scenario is being played out
for real, but with no hero to save the innocent victims. Shiva (2001) reports that:
In Britain, we see the army mobilized to kill a million or more farm animals and bury them in
mass graves
Unlike Ebola, however, foot-and-mouth disease is not fatal, cannot spread to humans and a
vaccine is available. It is quite similar to the common cold virus (Donaldson 2000) and
amounts to, in the words of Freedland (2001), a flu for animals.
And yet, in Britain, despite being a nation of animal lovers with an active animal
rights movement, the war against foot-and-mouth disease has led to the death of more than
four million animals, some of who, stunned or injured, survived hours, or even days, after a
slaughter operation (BBC 4 April 2001): without significant protest.

It is the contention of this paper that the influence of the British media, in the
cognitive structuring of the virus in the minds of the population, is the crucial
factor justifying what Freedland (2001) calls the collective madness of the mass
slaughter.
The paper results from the analysis of the ideological metaphors contained in a
200,000 word corpus of news reports about the foot-and-mouth crisis gathered from 4
national British newspapers, transcribed BBC news reports, and the Farmers Guardian.
These were collected mainly from on-line archives from mid February 2001, when the
disease first appeared, to the end of May 2001 when the number of new cases started trailing
off. At the time of writing (September 2001), however, there are still new cases of the disease
reported every day, with no end in sight.
Ideology, metaphor and social cognition
Central to how anyone treats animals is their individual knowledge. This knowledge is
structured in peoples minds through various models, such as prototypes (Rosch 1981),
scripts (Schank and Abelson 1977), schemata, networks, and metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson
2000). However, individuals do not live in isolation, and the same cognitive structures are

often shared among members of groups, leading to social cognition (van Dijk 1997, 1993,
1988). The primary way for cognitive structures to be transferred is through being embedded
in orders of discourse, that is, the sets of conventions associated with social institutions
(Fairclough 1989:16), and realized in the discourse, the actual talk or writing (ibid:29), of
these institutions or groups. People are exposed to the cognitive structures common to
specific groups when they come into contact with discourse produced by members of the
group, either through personal interaction or through the media (van Dijk 1988:108).
Metaphor is one of the structures which forms social cognition. Indeed, according to
Lakoff and Johnson (2000:118), everyday thought is largely metaphorical. When the
metaphors embedded in discourse act for the interests of the group which uses that discourse,
and against the interests of other groups, they could be called ideological metaphors.
Ideology in the foot-and-mouth crisis
The two main groups involved in dealing with the foot-and-mouth crisis are the National
Farmers Union, and the government. These two groups structure the concept of foot-andmouth disease in ways which benefit their own interests, against the interests of other groups,
particularly the animals, but also the tourist industry and taxpayers. The interests of the
farmers are financial, while the government is concerned with appeasing the powerful
farming lobby.
The cognitive structures used internally within these two powerful groups determine
the strategies they adopt for dealing with the disease. Representatives of the groups include
the president of the National Farmers Union, the Prime Minister, the agriculture minister, and
government appointed experts such as the chief vet and chief scientist, selected primarily
because their opinions coincide with the government. These representatives have privileged
access to the media, since they are the ones journalists rely on for the quotations and
information which make up news reports (Fowler 1991). This allows them to spread the
cognitive structures used within their group, including ideological metaphors, to the wider
population. The more society at large uses the same metaphors in their thinking process as the
government, the less likely they will be to oppose the actions that the government is taking.

The metaphors used to construct foot-and-mouth disease

Within the materials examined, as expected, the majority of direct and indirect
quotations and information appearing in the news reports come from
representatives of the farmers, the government and the experts they employ. There
were two main ideological metaphors within the discourses disseminated by these
representatives: foot-and-mouth as a war and as a fire. ?
Warfare
What is foot-and-mouth disease? Is it just like a dose of flu (Independent April 29) or, as
one farmer puts it, a powerful enemy [whose] foot soldiers are beyond number and its
capacity for harm beyond imagination (Independent March 19).. According to vet Neil
Frame, foot-and-mouth is a Blitzkrieg of disease ripping through the country, although he
goes on to complain about how difficult the disease can be to see in sheep (Farmers

Guardian March 23). Whatever foot-and-mouth is, the primary way it has been structured in
the media is as a war.
The Telegraph calls the nerve-centre of the operation to tackle foot-and-mouth a bunker,
which has the appearanceof a war-room during the worst of the Blitz (Telegraph March
4). From this war-room, the ministry is launching what it calls pre-emptive strikes
(Independent March 15) against sheep and pigs, killing thousands of healthy animals. The
British Army has been mobilised (IndependentMarch 20), led by Brigadier Birtwistle, a
game hunter whose military career is said to have given him the perfect credentials for
waging war on the spread of foot-and-mouth disease (BBC 29 March).
With the army involved and mass killing going on it is possible to lose sight of the fact that
the war is a metaphor, a cognitive way of structuring the complex domain of the disease and
its economic consequences using the simpler domain of war. The virus has been constructed
as the enemy, a formidable, powerful enemy (Independent March 19), which attacks
cattle, pigs, [and] sheep (Telegraph Feb 22). However, those who are in the frontline of the
battle (Guardian Feb 25) do not have the virus in their sights. Instead, their targets are the
very same cattle, pigs and sheep who are being attacked by the virus.
The disease could, alternatively, have been dealt with non-metaphorically, i.e., as a
disease, and treated by caring for sick animals (who recover after a few weeks), vaccinating
susceptible animals, and letting natural immunity take its course. But, because of the war
metaphor, vets have taken on a new role in the crisis, killing rather than curing animals. One
vet is keen to make a contribution to what resembles a war effort (Independent March 21),
while the vice-president of the British Veterinary Association is calling for a professional
Territorial Army of vets (Farmers Guardian May 25).
So why is a war metaphor used? One reason is that war provides a means for the
government to appease the farming lobby by placing themselves in the position of ally, and
focusing attention on a common foe. The agriculture minister, Nick Brown told farmers in
Devon that the Government would fight shoulder to shoulder with them to defeat the
epidemic (Telegraph March 27). When relations became strained he told the farmers The
war we should be fighting is against the virus. To be fighting each other is a ridiculous thing
to do (Telegraph March 16).
The reason farmers, particularly those whose farms are not in immediate danger,
support the war metaphor is that they want the disease stopped before it arrives on their
farms and causes reduced productivity and inconvenience in terms of looking after sick
animals. And they want it stopped fast, avoiding vaccination at all costs (Farmers
Guardian April 20), so that they can sell their meat abroad at premium prices.
War metaphors justify taking drastic action to achieve these financial goals: As a
military man, [Brig Birtwistle] knows the importance of precise planning and tough action to
achieve what he has described as an apocalyptic task. (BBC 29 March emphasis added).
The military, through their involvement alone, embody and entrench the war metaphor.
Roger Ward, of the National Farmers Union, directly invokes the war metaphor to
justify killing animals on uninfected farms:

In any war when youre fighting an enemy, and the virus was the enemy, therell
be innocent victims. Thats very regrettable and ones heart goes out to those
farming families that have had their livestock destroyed. (BBC News 11 May)
Notice that the innocent victims here are not the animals, but the farming families.
Three days later the BBC says, Farmers are the obvious victims of the outbreak of foot-andmouth (BBC March 14), and in nearly all the other materials examined it is farmers, rather
than animals, who are presented as victims. This is related to the cognitive structure involved.
The cast of characters in a war scenario is a villain, a victim, and a hero (Lakoff 1991). The
victim is the farmer, the villain is the virus, and the hero is the government. Animals are not
structured as victims in this scenario because the army cannot be ordered to kill innocent
victims.
Animals have become the targets of the killings, which is a role usually reserved for
the villain. There are some attempts to portray animals as the agents of the virus, where
suspect sheep (BBC 16 March) are harbouring the foot-and-mouth virus (Telegraph March
17), and spread[ing] the disease (Telegraph March 23), but these attempts are half hearted.
There is no talk of dangerous carriers of the disease or the like, because it is hard to make a
sheep with a flu-like virus play the role of villain. This leaves animals with no role within the
war metaphor.
Instead, the fact that the animals are the ones being killed in this war is hidden
through the language used. Instead of killing animals, a variety of euphemistic metaphors
are used. The BBC (May 11) talks about fields being cleared, while in the Times, animals
are lost (Feb 21). In one article in the Farmers Guardian animals are taken out,
eliminated, removed, and disappear (Farmers Guardian March 23).
The animals are disappearing, certainly, but only from the discourse surrounding footand-mouth. When words like kill or slaughter are used, the animals themselves are often
simply left out, as in slaughtering out the infection (BBC April 30), culling his farm (BBC
March 29), kill out only where the disease strikes (Farmers Guardian 6 April) (emphasis
added in each case). Even during their own funeral animals are made to disappear when
the Telegraph (Feb 26) speaks of farmers who saw their livelihoods thrown on to the
bonfires[and] watched the cremation without ceremony of their livelihood (Telegraph Feb
26).
All of these ways of taking animals out of the picture hide the fact that within the metaphor of
war animals are implicitly being made to play the role of enemy soldier. This role is made
explicit only in the few voices of opposition to the slaughter policy that reach the press.
George Monbiot, of Greenpeace, talks about the governments declaration of war with
Britains sheep (Guardian March 29), and the ecologist Vandana Shiva writes that
paranoiais moving the military might of Britain to declare a war against its hoofed
inhabitants (Guardian April 4).
Eventually, when the virus is eradicated, the war metaphor will allow the government
to claim victory, even if there are no more animals left to catch the disease.

Forest Fire

The second major, and simultaneous, way that the disease is conceptualized is through
the metaphor of fire. Foot-and-mouth is, according to the Times (Feb 22), the forest fire of
diseases, which is raging out of control (Independent March 25). Fires must be stamped
out, except that in this case foot-and-mouth must be stamped out by slaughter (Times March
28). This justifies killing any animals who have the disease.
But in addition to this, the forest fire metaphor also leads to, and justifies, the killing
of healthy animals. In a mixture of metaphors Tony Blairstepped up the war against footand-mouth ordering [a] precautionary firebreak cull (Telegraph March 23). This means
that, for example, on the island of Anglesey, all sheep in a 50 square mile area are being
culledto create a firebreak (Farmers Guardian March 30).
In the forest fire metaphor, animals are taking the role of trees, with those animals in
the line of spread sacrificed (Farmers Guardian March 9). It is an unfortunate fact that in a
forest fire some trees must be burned as a fire-break in order to save thousands of other trees.
However, in the case of a fire, the thousands of other trees would otherwise be consumed
and destroyed by fire. In contrast, in the case of foot-and-mouth, animals become ill for a few
weeks before recovering. Fighting fire with fire is the metaphor, but in reality this means
fighting a mild animal illness with mass slaughter.
The fire metaphor also allows the government, in the form of the agriculture minister, to
claim that foot-and-mouth has been contained and is under control (Telegraph March 12)
in the run up to an election, although the Independent (March 22) asks In what sense,
precisely, is it under control?

Conclusion
The case study of foot-and-mouth disease presented in this paper illustratesthe workings of
ideological metaphor in the media. The model presented is of interested parties in positions of
power using the reliance of the press on their quotes and information to spread cognitive
structures, including metaphors, which justify their actions. These metaphors contribute to the
forming of social cognition, large numbers of people within the population adoptand use the
same structures in their thought and discourse.
In the case of foot-and-mouth, the structuring of the disease by the government and farmers
revolves around the ideological metaphors of warfare and fire. These, it is argued, contribute
to a way of thinking which results in, and can be used to justify, the suffering and mass
killing of healthy and recuperating animals.
Predominant cognitive structures can be challenged, however, as can be seen in the
occasional voices of opposition to the government appearing in the newspapers. The war
metaphor is made to seem absurd when it is pointed out that The blitz has been equated with
1,500 cattle becoming mildly ill (Independent April 29). However, new metaphors are
required, metaphors which structure the disease in a way that recognizes that the only crime
the animals have committed is having blisters in their mouths, not being able to eat for a
while, and therefore providing less meat for the farmer who will eventually kill them.

Foot-and-mouth disease is a mild, non-fatal illness. However, through

ideological metaphors dispersed through the media, the illness comes to be
construed as a deadly virus, a virus which must be fought and stamped out, in all
circumstances and at any cost. This leads to the immediate killing of any animal

which has the disease, and ironically, the cognitive structuring itself results in a
relatively harmless illness, foot-and-mouth disease, being made into a truly deadly
disease.
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