ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that all activists attempt to garner media attention for their work. This is because, as journalism scholar Michael Meadows notes, mass media not only disseminate information, they create meaning by "making sense of the here and now. The chapter also discusses the one cultural resource that harmed US activists more than it did French activists was the charge of terrorism. Some French activists saw the US government's crackdown on animal activists as a sign of success for the movement, in that it garnered such backlash, and others used militant imagery as a way to recruit young activists into their movement. Animal rights organizations enjoyed widespread support from celebrities, many of whom make their vegetarianism or veganism known in their media-saturated lives. Just as antiwar activists became "unpatriotic" and "un-American" simply by virtue of protesting war, animal rights activists became unpatriotic, un-American terrorists simply by virtue of being active for animals.
