The Internet of Animals

'The internet is made of cats' is a half-jokingly made claim. Today, animals of all shapes and sizes inhabit our digital spaces, including companion animals, wildlife, feral animals and livestock.

In this book, Deborah Lupton explores how digital technologies and datafication are changing our relationships with other animals. Playfully building on the concept of 'The Internet of Things', she discusses the complex feelings that have developed between people and animals through the use of digital devices, from social media to employing animal-like robots as companions and carers. The book brings together a range of perspectives, including those of sociology, cultural geography, environmental humanities, critical animal studies and internet studies, to consider how these new digital technologies are contributing to major changes in human–animal relationships at both the micropolitical and macropolitical levels. As Lupton shows, while digital devices and media have strengthened people's relationships to other creatures, these technologies can also objectify animals as things for human entertainment, therapy or economic exploitation.

This original and engaging book will be of interest to scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities.

Introduction

1 Conceptualising Humans, Animals and Human-Animal Relations

2 Animal Enthusiasts, Activism and Politics in Digital Media

3 The Quantified Animal and Dataveillance

4 Animal Cuteness, Therapy and Celebrity Online

5 Animal Avatars and Zoomorphic Robots

Conclusion: Reimagining Human-Animal Relations



Appendix

References

Index "Deborah Lupton is a brilliant guide to animal–human–digital assemblages."
Bill Adams, University of Cambridge

"Lupton takes us on a fascinating journey into the past and the future to help us grapple with our intimate relations with animals. We are confronted with how the digital mediates our emotional need to care for and control the creatures that we have come to see as extensions of ourselves."
Payal Arora, Erasmus University, and author of The Next Billion Users

"Lupton asks: 'How are human-animal relationships changing?' and 'How are digital media and devices contributing to this change?'. Her wide-ranging exploration broaches many insightful responses to this question, with a useful attention to both pros and cons, though an inevitable weighting toward more regrettable and insidious ramifications."
Randy Malamud, Journal of Animal Ethics

Deborah Lupton is SHARP Professor, and Leader of the Vitalities Lab and the UNSW Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, at UNSW Sydney.