The Internet of Animals: Human-Animal Relationships in the Digital Age

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GoodTaste

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The Internet of Animals: Human-Animal Relationships in the Digital Age
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.

Source: WILEY

Does the animals in "The Internet of Animals" include humans? The context above gives me a contradictory impression - both including and excluding are possible.
 

jutfrank

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No, the word 'animals' is expressly used in contrast to humans. That's the whole point—this is about the relationship between humans and (non-human) animals.
 

Barque

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Yes, it contrasts humans with animals throughout, except in the first sentence, which refers to "other animals" and therefore contrasts humans with non-human animals.
Deborah Lupton explores how digital technologies and datafication are changing our relationships with other animals.


both including and excluding are possible.
There's no instance in the passage where the word "animals" includes humans. The first sentence acknowledges humans are part of the animal kingdom but differentiates them by use of the word "other".
 
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