CORA
Cork Open Research Archive (CORA) is UCC’s Open Access institutional repository which enables UCC researchers to make their research outputs freely available and accessible.
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A Bronze Age cemetery mound at Grange, Co Roscommon
(1997) Ó Ríordáin, Breandán; Brindley, Anna L.; O'Donnabhain, Barra
Invisibilization of animal journalism: ideological gatekeeping, soft censorship, and marginalization of antispeciesist journalists in Spanish written media
(2026-01-01) Ruiz Carreras, María
This article examines the dual marginalization present in the Spanish media landscape: the invisibility of nonhuman animals as agents and the systemic obstacles faced by journalists attempting to represent their interests. Through in-depth, dialogic interviews with Spanish journalists engaged in antispeciesist reporting, this study investigates the persistent marginalization of antispeciesist journalism, as well as the challenges of advocating for nonhuman animal rights within written media newsrooms. The findings reveal how journalistic conventions, ideological biases and structural constraints contribute to the continued framing of nonhuman animals as passive commodities or spectacles, while their agency, rights and individuality are overlooked. Simultaneously, journalists covering animal rights issues encounter editorial resistance, with their work frequently dismissed as trivial or frivolous. These barriers manifest through ideological gatekeeping, soft censorship and the demand for “balance” that privileges speciesist perspectives. By analyzing this dual invisibility, both of the nonhumans and of the journalists advocating for them, this article studies the power dynamics shaping media agendas and the structural undervaluation of antispeciesist reporting. Situated within the framework of critical animal media studies and drawing on gatekeeping theory, it contextualizes the marginalization of antispeciesist perspectives within broader patterns of media exclusion. The findings highlight the tensions between journalistic integrity and the constraints of human-centric media priorities, underscoring the need for structural changes to ensure that nonhuman animal rights receive serious and sustained attention in the Spanish press.
Restoration of sheep transhumance in the Ebro Valley, Aragon, Spain
(2011) O'Flanagan, Patrick; Martinez, T. L; Abad, M. P. E
For centuries, sheep transhumance has connected the Spanish highlands with the lowlands, creating a livestock system with important social, economic, cultural, and landscape effects. About 5 million sheep were involved in transhumant movements in the mid-1700s, but transhumance started to decay in the nineteenth century and almost disappeared in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1980s, transhumant sheep did not number more than 25,000 in the study area; at present the number exceeds 134,000, with herders practicing both descending and ascending transhumance. In this article we provide information not only on current numbers of transhumant sheep but also on the origins and destinations of the flocks. We also confirm that the reputation of transhumance, once regarded as quaint and antiquated, has been enhanced by the ecosystem services it provides and by the cultural and heritage continuities it renders.
Beyond anthropocentrism: how journalists make the more-than-human world visible in Spanish written media
(2026-08-20) Ruiz Carreras, Maria
Non-human animals are systematically excluded from public narratives, rarely recognized as sentient subjects, and instead framed within anthropocentric narratives of production and consumption; efforts to challenge this pattern and make the more-than-human world visible often encounter editorial resistance and structural constraints. This study examines how anti-speciesist journalists in Spanish written media navigate such resistance to make non-human animals legitimate subjects of news. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with nine self-identified anti-speciesist journalists, analysed through reflexive thematic analysis, the study identifies strategies organized across four non-mutually exclusive categories, namely, discursive, relational, framing, and structural, ranging from self-censorship and strategic language use to coalition-building and the creation of independent platforms. Findings reveal a key distinction between visibility strategies, which succeed in securing publication, and root-level strategies, which challenge the carnist and anthropocentric assumptions structuring newsworthiness itself. These practices reveal the pragmatism, creativity, and resilience of journalists working under structural, ideological, and normative constraints, while also highlighting the limits of anti-speciesist reporting within mainstream media. The study contributes to Critical Animal Media Studies, environmental communication, and journalism research by illuminating the intersection of ethical advocacy, professional strategy, and counter-hegemonic practice and offers recommendations for expanding coverage of the more-than-human world across ideological, editorial, and structural divides.
The status of children in a sample of Bronze Age burials containing pygmy cups
(1990) O'Donnabhain, Barra; Brindley, Anna L.