‘Taking the politics out of broccoli’: Debating (de)meatification in UK national and regional newspaper coverage of the Meat Free Mondays campaign

This paper addresses UK society’s relationship with meat and specifically explores the extent to which a process of ‘de-meatification’ is underway in this context and one of the mechanisms involved. It does so through analysis of reporting of the Meat Free Mondays (MFM) campaign in the national and regional British print news media. MFM offers a convenient yet powerful vehicle for trying to understand shifting meanings of meat not least because it directly challenges, and generates debate about the dominant – meat based – diet. The paper concludes by arguing that a shift is taking place in the status of meat within UK society with the print news media acting as a mechanism that is working in support of de-meatification. However, these conclusions are qualified in a number of important ways, including the anthropocentrism of the (de)meatification debate, its geographical variability and its weakly politicised character.


Introduction
This paper examines the current status of meat within UK society and the ways in which this is changing. An increasingly vociferous case is being made by a diverse group of actors for 'de-meatification' i.e. a transition to less meat intensive diets on the grounds of environmental and human health and animal welfare (Sage 2014;Gerber et al. 2013;Scarborough et al. 2014;Westhoek et al. 2014;Hallstrom et al. 2015;Springmann et al. 2016). A recent suite of studies has begun to provide empirical evidence, in a number of different country contexts, of de-meatification in the form of 'flexitarianism' i (e.g. De Bakker and Dagevos 2012; Dagevos and Voordouw 2013;De Boer et al 2014;Raphaely and Marinova 2014;Dagevos 2016), while other research has begun to theorise transitions to a plant based diet (Vinnari and Vinnari 2014). This paper extends this emerging body of work to further explore the process of de-meatification, the extent to which it is happening in particular places and the reasons and mechanisms why/not, in order to inform debate and action. It does so by adopting a distinctive empirical focus and methodological approach, analysing reporting of the Meat Free Mondays (MFM) campaign in the British print news media. In doing so it conceptualises the media as a key site within which societal meanings of meat are produced, circulated and contested (Burgess, 1990).
MFM is selected as the focus of empirical analysis because it is the most prominent UK example of what Morris et al. (2014: 190)  During the First and Second World Wars the US government organised successful campaigns to encourage less meat consumption on a Monday, together with 'Wheatless Wednesdays' (Foodwise 2013) ii . The Monday Campaigns, the parent organisation for Meatless Monday, has identified that as Monday is the beginning of the working week and the start of a weekly routine, organising action on that day can "positively affect a range of healthy behaviours" (Monday Campaigns 2013). MFM provides a convenient yet powerful focus for trying to understand shifting meanings of meat because it challenges directly the dominant -meat based -diet. As such, MFM is likely to generate debate and controversy which in turn will be revealing of deeper societal meanings ascribed to meat which are the particular concern of the paper.
In the next section further context is provided through a discussion of the emerging debate about the politics of meat and the role of the media in these processes. A description of the methods employed in the generation and analysis of empirical material is followed by its presentation organised in terms of the orientation of press reporting (positive and negative), less pronounced themes in journalism about MFM and regional reporting. The paper concludes by arguing that a shift in societal relationships with meat is underway with the media engaged in an active debate about the dietary centrality of meat and the negative effects of meat eating on the environment and health. Further, and in contrary to studies that assert the mass media is a key institution that endorses the current regime of meat provisioning, the evidence presented suggests instead that the UK print media is slightly more likely than not to endorse efforts such as MFM which encourage less meat eating. In other words, newspapers as one prominent form of media, can be understood as a mechanism working in support of demeatification. However, the conclusions are qualified in a number of important ways, including the anthropocentrism of the (de)meatification debate, its geographical variability and its weakly politicised character, all of which signal directions for future research.

Meatification, de-meatification and the media
Scholarship on the politics of meat has begun to expand in the last decade iii and different contributions to this debate are starting to become apparent. Nevertheless, common to all analyses is a problematisation of the current regime of meat provisioning, characterised by the intensification of livestock production and escalating levels of meat consumption. This process has been conceptualised as the 'meatification' of diets (de Schutter, 2009) which is understood to have begun in countries in the global north that have been consuming relatively large amounts of meat for many decades iv , but is now spreading to the emerging market economies of Asia and Latin America, countries that traditionally consumed relatively small amounts of animal foods. The default explanation for dietary meatification is changing consumer desires associated with rising real incomes of expanding urban middle classes in newly industrialising countries. More critical commentaries point instead to the role of corporate and government regulation of the meat provisioning system (Machlachlan, 2015).
While scholars agree that meatification is a serious problem, the intellectual basis of this critique is shaped by at least two distinct perspectives. The first of these is 'political ecological' in orientation and concerned with the power of the meat industry and its undesirable consequences for the environment and people (Emel and Neo, 2015; Raphaely and Marinova 2016). One example of this form of critique is Weis's (2010) 'ecological hoofprint' which he describes as: "a framework for conceptualizing the resource budget and multi-dimensional environmental burden of industrial livestock" (Weis 2013: 75). The second mode of critique is associated with 'critical animal studies' which challenges institutional discrimination towards particular species of animals and the normative power of animal food consumption. Specifically, through the lens of the 'animal industrial-complex' it uncovers the mechanisms which normalise the production and consumption of animal products (e.g. Fitzgerald and Taylor 2014).
Although these two approaches to critique are recognised as sharing some concerns, the starting points and emphases of the two problematisations of meatification are distinct and this is important since it can lead to different conclusions. Implied within the critical animal studies position is a 'no meat at all' conclusion but other forms of critical scholarship assert that "we can affordably make room for animal products at our dinner tables....(b)ut to reach this point, something significant must change" (Carolan 2011: 84;see also Food Ethics Council 2001;Fairlie 2010). Such positions necessarily accept the killing of animals for food but recognise that different meats and meat production systems have variable environmental (e.g. Hamerschlag 2011) and animal welfare impacts (Miele 2011), with some that are more sympathetic and benign than the intensive systems associated with meatification and which legitimise their continuation and expansion. Also beginning to differentiate research within critical meat scholarship is a position asserted by some authors that a gradual shift is taking place in society's relationship with meat within some of the high consuming countries of the global north, in spite of the evidence for meatification. This is a view advanced by Fiddes (1991), who argues from an anthropological perspective that meat, particularly red meat, is experiencing "waning prestige" (p.45) as a food laden with meaning symbolising human control of nature. This diminishing of meat's symbolic status is a reflection of fundamental societal developments associated with the emergence and mainstreaming of environmental values i.e. a desire -albeit yet unfulfilled -to establish a less exploitative relationship with nature. Other authors also suggest that the cultural image and appreciation of meat are slowly changing and present alternative forms of evidence suggestive of a move towards 'de-meatification'. For example, a recent decline in US meat consumption has led some media commentators to coin the term 'peak meat' suggesting that the point of maximum meat consumption is now passed (Gunther 2013; see also Dagevos 2016) v .
A survey of Dutch consumers reported by de Bakker and Dagevos (2012) found a little over a quarter are 'meat lovers' (eating meat at least once a day) while 4% are 'meat avoiders', excluding meat completely from the diet. However, about 70% were found to be 'meat reducers', a finding which "indicates that eating no meat regularly is adopted already by a group of several millions of Dutch consumers. … To them, abstaining from eating meat periodically has nothing to do with a strange or problematic food habit.
Instead, non-meat consumption is an accepted food consumption practice" (De Bakker and Dagevos 2012: 882 emphasis added; see also Dagevos and Voordouw 2013;De Boer et al. 2014;Dagevos 2016 for further empirical evidence of the rise of flexitarianism in the Netherlands). That LMIs have an international presence beyond the global north is also suggestive that widespread and meaningful "steps that are being taken to address the apparent excess of meat production and consumption" (Morris et al. 2014: 190) even though the outcomes of these efforts are currently very unclear. Together with Sage's (2014) exploration of a number of 'pathways towards de-meatification' and Vinnari and Vinnari's (2014) sustainable transition framework for plant based diets, this group of studies not only recognises that the status of meat is already changing but is also characterised by a desire to explore ways in which new regimes of meat provisioning might be established. However, questions remain about the mechanisms of de-meatification, the extent to which it is happening and where. Such questions provide the motivation for and justification of the analysis conducted in this paper.
One of the possible mechanisms of de-meatification is the media, the institution of central interest herein. A typical argument in the scholarship on the politics of meat is that the media works to promote the meat eating status quo. For example, in concluding their analysis of LMIs Morris et al. (2014: 204 emphasis added) argue that "while commercial organizations, the media and the state continue to promote high and unsustainable levels of meat consumption … the ability of the LMI niche to facilitate effectively the diffusion of an innovative social practice -eating less meat -is likely to be limited". An even more damning assessment is provided by Cole and Morgan (2011) in a study revealing the derogatory discourses of veganism in UK national newspapers.
These authors assert that a "flesh eating hegemony", which is a reflection of dominant social attitudes, "permeates the modern media" (cited in Fitzgerald and Taylor, 2014: 169). Fitzgerald and Taylor's analysis of multiple forms of meat promotion media in Australia finds agreement with Cole and Morgan leading them to conclude that the messages communicated to potential consumers by the 'animal-industrial complex', of which marketing and public relations are critical, constitutive components, are an important mechanism normalising the consumption of animal foods Khazaal and Almiron (2016)  shifting societal meanings of meat. The paper now turns to its methodological approach. Fitzgerald and Taylor (2014: 169) argue "in modern western society, the media has an enormous power to disseminate ideas about issues, to frame things in certain ways and to determine what is considered normal" including, in the analysis herein, the consumption of animal foods. Following this logic, UK newspapers, and their reporting of MFM, were utilised as the source of empirical material. This news source was accessed through LexisNexis an online legal and media database that includes national and regional newspapers. All national newspapers, both broadsheet and tabloid, were included in the search as it was assumed that discussion of meat and MFM would vary within and between these newspaper types due to differences in editorial emphasis and target audiences (Browne, 2005) and this variation could provide helpful insights into the object of concern while also avoiding any bias in reporting that might arise from making selective use of news sources. Previous UK based research on meat in the media has not examined multiple newspapers across the political spectrum (e.g. Dornbusch 1998; Kiesel 2010). To enhance geographical sensitivity and insight two regional newspapers were also selected for analysis: The Western Mail and the Western Daily News. The former covers the south west of England (and is published in Plymouth, Devon) while the latter is a Welsh newspaper, published in Cardiff south Wales and self identifies as the 'national newspaper of Wales'. Both regions are predominantly rural in character and livestock farming is an important dimension of the rural economy. As such, it was assumed that these newspapers might be more likely to promote the interests of livestock agriculture and be more critical of MFM. Since the national press in the UK has a reputation for urban bias it was not deemed necessary to select particular city based newspapers to 'balance' the coverage provided by the two regional were found in different sections of the newspapers and included reader letters. Thirteen articles were derived from the regional newspapers, all of which were published within the period up to December 2011. After this point the researcher's university changed its access agreement with LexisNexis which meant that a full search of the regional newspapers was not possible for the later part of the research period. It is acknowledged that this is a limitation.

As
Building on the approach adopted by Cole and Morgan (2011), each article was categorised according to whether its overall tone was positive, negative, neutral or mixed. Cole and Morgan employed the first three of these categories but here it was judged necessary to include the fourth. To be assessed as either positive or negative required an article to explicitly include evaluative language that was either supportive or critical of MFM. Articles which included both positive and negative commentary about MFM, without either type of assessment being dominant, were categorised as 'mixed' rather than 'neutral'. A neutral article was assessed as such when it reported 'the facts' of the MFM campaign e.g. information about its launch and objectives as stated by the campaign itself, without any evaluative language by the journalist. The next stage of analysis was thematic and involved a manual 'descriptive' line by line coding that formed the basis of more conceptually oriented or 'analytical' codes (Boyatzis 1998). These higher level codes enabled identification of a series of thematic subcategories within each of the article categorisations (i.e. positive, negative, neutral).

Results
Articles in the national press were more likely to discuss MFM positively (38%) rather than negatively (33%) ( Table 1). Slightly more than a fifth of articles were neutral in their reporting (22%) and only a small proportion (8%) offered a mixed analysis of MFM.
Overall journalists are more inclined than not to write about eating less meat in positive or neutral terms. Another key finding evident in Table 1 is a tendency towards more negative reporting in the right leaning press vi (notably the Telegraph and Daily Mail) with the opposite being the case in the left leaning and independent press (Guardian, Observer and Independent) (Browne 2005). The latter is also more likely to contain 'mixed' articles that include discussion of both negative and positive dimensions of the campaign i.e.
they offer more balanced reporting. The one newspaper that breaks the rule is the Times. Although currently owned by the politically conservative media entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch the newspaper has previously supported the Labour Party. It contains the largest number of articles overall and the greatest proportion of positive reporting, with a similar proportion of mixed, neutral and negative articles. One explanation for this is that in spite of its current owner the newspaper has retained is reputation as the UK's 'newspaper of record' vii (Martin and Hansen 1996).
The number of articles published in the national press varied across the years studied, with the greatest number (39)  Initially, at the launch of MFM, reporting was much more likely to be negative in orientation but this pattern reversed as the research period progressed (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Number of positive, negative, neutral and mixed national newspaper articles by year
In the following sections the themes within each of the categories of positive and negative article are considered before less pronounced themes in the national reporting and the regional perspectives are presented.

Positive reporting of MFM
Within the articles with content categorised as positive, three themes were identified: MFM is good for your health; the message of the campaign is moderate, sensible and achievable; MFM is good for the environment. In some instances more than one of these themes was present in the same article. Each of these themes is discussed in more detail below The articles claiming that MFM is good for health (a theme identified in 13% of all articles) make the argument that the UK population eats too much meat and this is bad for health and therefore initiatives such as MFM that encourage people to eat less meat and more plants are likely to have health benefits. It is not always the case, however, that the specific health benefits from eating less meat and more plants are elucidated.
Likewise, evidence supporting these claims is provided only occasionally as in the following example: "A good way to cut calories and saturated fat, increase your vegetable intake and help the planet is to take the Meat Free Mondays pledge which aims to reduce the amount of meat we eat. In 2010, a study carried out by Oxford University found that eating meat no more than three times a week could prevent 31,000 deaths a year from heart disease, 9,000 from cancer and 5,000 from strokes" (Ebelthite, 14.4.2015, Express).
Although the majority of the articles featuring a 'good health' dimension acknowledge that health is one of a number of benefits to be realised from MFM, a few articles make the erroneous claim that MFM has the singular objective of improving health (e.g. Anon, 22.6.2014).
Associated with the health benefits of MFM, but a distinct second theme (evident in 14% of all articles), is that the campaign's call for lower levels of meat eating reflects, while also contributing to its further popularisation, an already in progress, societal shift towards flexitarianism. This transition is understood in the reporting as being driven primarily by health, but also financial benefits i.e. a diet involving less meat costs less than a meat based diet viii . One article writes of MFM as: "encouraging people to eat less meat, starting one day at a time. In fact, according to recent figures, nearly 90% of Brits now have at least two meat-free days per week -an idea once unheard of in our traditional British meat-and two-veg culture" (Stoppard, 16.7.2009, Daily Mirror). Vegevores represent a backlash against the 'meatification' of menus in the last 10 years, but they explicitly remove the politics surrounding meat eating because in this trend one still eats meat albeit not so much or so prominently (Gill, 5.2.2012, Sunday Time).
In contrast to the apolitical character of the first two themes, a third (evident in 27% of all articles) is potentially more political as it highlights the environmental benefits to be realised from eating less meat. Consistent, however, with the other themes is that this is reported as an environmental 'easy win' for those signing up to a MFM. For the most part articles featuring this theme negatively associate livestock production with climate change -typically referred to as 'global warming' -through greenhouse gas emissions.
For example, Mesure (12.7.2009, Independent) describes MFM as aiming to help "help slow climate change since livestock production pumps more greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere than transportation." In support of these assertions the UN's 2007 report 'Livestock's Long Shadow' is cited as a key evidence source, although by no means consistently. That supporting evidence is sometimes lacking may help to explain occasional inaccuracies in reporting which state that the source of the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock is their anuses rather than their mouths. This may be deliberate as it offers journalists the opportunity to inject some toilet humour into their stories and has been observed in reporting of the link between meat and climate change in other national contexts (Almiron and Zoppeddu 2015). For example, the MFM campaign is reported by Freeman (17.6.2009, Guardian) to be "predicated on the legitimate and yet also fabulous concern that cows are ... farting the planet to death".
Only very occasionally are other environmental impacts of livestock production discussed, such as its land use implications (e.g. Hickman, 15.6.2009, Independent). The following quotation is from an article that considers some of the environmental complexities of meat production that go beyond its negative contribution to climate change, albeit repeating the erroneous claim that this is due to farting rather than burping livestock. The article also recognises that in some specific locales livestock production can be environmentally positive: "A limited amount of livestock production is good for the environment --it's part of our heritage, after all. I don't want to see the British landscape changed for good, but I also don't want rain forests hacked down and turned into pastures where cattle are intensively reared to supply an addiction to cheap meat and burgers that's out of control. Cows fart, which produces methane gas, but …(t)he bigger environmental damage comes from producing their feed and the costs of transportation. If you can eat local food, excellent. But that's not realistic for everyone, and that's why eating a bit less meat is a good idea" (Street Porter,

15.6.2009, Daily Mail).
This article is unusual in its reference to particular spatialities -the British landscape and Each of these themes is discussed in the following sub-sections. Sunday Telegraph) while recognising that MFM as a movement is growing in popularity, asserts it is unlikely to be effective because "the ratio is wrong. The amount of meat that everyone in the world could eat without straining resources is more like meat on Mondays and Tuesdays only". More radical steps such as entire weeks that are meat free, as introduced recently in Australia, may therefore be required.

MFM and the environment
Contradicting the framing of MFM as environmentally positive, is a questioning and critique of MFM's environmental credentials specifically its claims about the climate benefits of eating less meat. In this respect, so Forsyth argues, Paul McCartney employs an "abstruse logic" (26.6.2009, Express). Linking meat eating and climate change raises all sorts of unanswered questions for other commentators. One journalist (unnamed) from the Express, for example, asserts that "vegetarians must also account for a lot of gases. Look how many beans they eat" (21.6.2009). Here, then, it is farting vegetarians rather than farting cows that are the problem. Meanwhile, Herbert, writing in the Independent (17.11.2009), questions why meat should be singled out for criticism by the MFM campaign when dairy cows also produce greenhouse gases and Asian paddy fields are significant emitters of methane. Another journalist elaborates that "60 per cent of our farm land is grassland, suitable only for rearing animals. The environmental damage that would ensue should this be ploughed up for cereals and legumes would be catastrophic" (Brooks, 4.12.2009, Telegraph).
That different forms of meat production have differential environmental impacts is discussed by Markwell in the Independent (16.6.2009) and is unusual in introducing complexity into the debate about livestock production and climate change. "Do turkeys and chicken really expel enough methane to worry the climate-change crew?" she questions. "Sane omnivores" (as opposed to, one assumes, 'insane vegetarians'), it is asserted, who enjoy eating organic chicken or locally produced lamb should be able to carry on consuming these more "environmentally benign" forms of meat although no supporting evidence is provided.

The problems with a plant based diet
Although erroneous the MFM campaign is associated, indeed at times conflated with vegetarianism xi , an approach to diet which is represented as questionable in various ways. Although himself a vegetarian, Freeman (17.6.2009, Guardian) criticises the logic of the diet on the basis that "humans are meant to be omnivores, not herbivores". A diet featuring more plants, is further characterised as undesirable environmentally.
Although reported in a much smaller number of articles than those featuring the 'less meat is good for health' perspective, meat eating is seen as good for health, being an

MFM -a problem for British farming
Perhaps unsurprisingly, MFM is framed as an initiative that is likely to have the undesirable outcome of undermining the farming industry in the UK, although this was a theme that was present in only a small number of articles in the national print media reflecting perhaps its urban orientation. Here, the voices of industry representatives are reported contesting MFM while in others the journalists themselves anticipate an industry backlash (e.g. Street-Porter, 28.12.2009, Daily Mail). In both cases the critique of MFM is made in terms of the rural economy i.e. farmers will go out of business (e.g. Hunt, 17.7.2009, Telegraph), environment (see discussion above of the environmental contradictions of MFM) and health i.e. eating red meat is good for health and part of a balanced diet. More specifically within this theme, MFM is claimed to have ignored the farming industry's efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (Anon, 21.6.2009, Daily Star).

Less prominent themes
Of interest are themes within the reporting that are less pronounced. Three in particular are noted. First, in only a very small number of articles are the adverse consequences for animals of meat production considered, with Observer journalist and vegetarian Barbara Ellen the only one to offer an extended discussion (19.9.2010). While recognising Paul McCartney's need to highlight the environmental dimensions of meat production "to try to enrol more carnivores into his cause" ultimately, Ellen argues "…the animal rights argument for vegetarianism is more powerful and meaningful." Second, there is a lack of attention given to the role of government in shaping diets in relation to meat consumption. Although the focus of reporting is a non-governmental campaign, reporting of MFM could legitimately act as a jumping off point for discussion of other institutional mechanisms, including government policy, for modifying diets.
Only one article discusses how civil society food campaigns such as MFM are growing in number and becoming more sophisticated, while also relying on celebrities to help raise their profile and impact (a feature decried by other commentators). This trend is attributed to a lack of government action in addressing food provisioning challenges (Rayner, 14.6.2009, The Observer). Only one further article addresses the UK government's reticence in formulating dietary policy including in relation to meat eating and this in a context which connects to the second less pronounced theme -the relationship between meat eating and masculine identity. Here, the UK's male defence minister at the time -Philip Hammond -is reported as unlikely to follow the decision of his female counterpart in Norway to institute MFM in the country's army canteens, a move applauded by the female journalist (Street-Porter, 29.3.2014, The Independent).
Although the relationship between gender and meat eating has received explicit attention within the academic literature (e.g. Rozin et al. 2012;Adams 2015) very few of the articles made reference to this relationship and were more likely than not to be negative in their analysis. Feeding a man vegetables within the context of MFM is reported as a direct affront to his masculinity. One tabloid journalist, for example, describes his resentment to MFM being imposed upon him by his female partner: "(b)ecause feeding men broccoli doesn't turn us into lean, content metrosexuals.
It turns us into inwardly simmering beasts with a zombie-like craving for flesh.
Feed a man steak, and he'll turn into a subservient pussycat who can't wait to get home" (Daubny, 30.5.2012, The Sun).
Only one article classified as positive, and which provides advice on simple steps to improving men's health, made the case that MFM is a healthy option for men because they do not have to give up meat completely, the implication being that their masculinity is preserved (Ebelthite, 14.4.2015, Express).

Regional perspectives
Although the total number of articles analysed overall is very small, that only two of the 13 articles in the two regional newspapers were coded as positive represents a much lower proportion than in the national print media. Six articles were coded as negative, a slightly higher proportion than in the national print media, and such articles featured language that was noticeably more emotive. The remainder (5) were mixed in content, containing both positive and negative perspectives. In noticeable contrast with the national press barely any mention is made of the 'less meat is good for your health' argument. Instead, the assertion that eating meat is part of a healthy balanced diet is more likely to feature. There is no acknowledgement or attention given to MFM being part of a wider societal shift towards less meat eating. Instead, the statement is made that the rising demand for meat globally represents an aspiration that we have no right to deny, a morally charged argument that is not a feature of the national reporting but one that fails to acknowledge that this trend might be supply rather than demand driven (Machlachlan 2015). One article is unusual in its negative stance as it makes the case for a more radical move to eating no meat at all, asserting in the process that MFM does not go nearly far enough in its objectives. This is, however, explained by the author being the campaign manager of an animal rights group based in Bristol.
Discussion in the regional reporting is dominated by the twin concerns of the adverse impacts of MFM on farm incomes and livestock production's environmental impacts, particularly on the climate. A distinctive feature of the reporting of the second theme is the more consistent attention given to the complexities of the debate about meat production and the environment. Journalists acknowledge agriculture's role in climate change, with no errors made in specifying the source of the emissions. However, much more emphasis is placed than in the national press both on the steps being taken to address this by the industry but also on contesting the figures which claim that agriculture contributes more greenhouse gases than other economic sectors (e.g. Dube, 23.6.2009, Western Mail). A more careless, evidence poor style of reporting is illustrated the evocation of the 'farting vegetarian' (Anon, 20.5.2009, Western Mail;Anon, 16.12.2009, Western Morning News). In addition, the point is made that agriculture is as much a victim of climate change as a contributor to it (Parish, 2.12.2009, Western Morning News), something that did not feature at all in the national news coverage.
Furthermore, a strong case is advanced for livestock agriculture's positive environmental impacts, particularly in terms of its contribution to "spectacular scenery"

Discussion and conclusions
This paper has sought to examine the changing meanings and status of meat within UK society, specifically whether and to what extent there is evidence for a process of demeatification. It has used as its vehicle of analysis the national and regional print news media and how these media have reported the Meat Free Mondays campaign, a civil society initiative that encourages reduced levels of meat eating and in the process challenges directly meat-centric diets. The analysis reveals a relatively balanced picture, of both positive and negative reporting. However, a key conclusion is that newspapers are slightly more inclined than not to conceptualise eating less meat, encouraged by MFM, in positive terms. That this is most likely to be framed in relation to environmental benefits is noteworthy, particularly given previous media research which has revealed that meat's role in climate change is consistently under-reported (e.g. Almiron and Zoppeddu 2015;Mayes 2016). The health benefits of eating less meat also feature prominently providing some support for Singer's (2016)

interpretation of Meatless
Monday as an anthropocentric campaign. At the very least what these UK data suggest is that a debate is actively taking place about the centrality of meat in the diet and that this is associated with a softening of attitudes towards eating less meat if not towards excluding meat completely from the diet. As such, the findings provide support for the view, as espoused by Fiddes (1991) and authors who have subsequently pursued similar lines of reasoning, that UK society's relationship with meat is changing and specifically that some degree of de-meatification is taking place. Further, and in contrary to studies that argue the mass media is a key institution that works to reinforce the current regime of meat provisioning (e.g. Fitzgerald and Taylor 2014;Freeman et al. 2011), this paper concludes that newspapers, as one prominent form of media, can be understood as a mechanism that, at least in the UK context, is working in support of de-meatification.
However, these conclusions need to be nuanced in three important ways. First, editorial policy matters. The right leaning press, which includes UK national tabloid newspapers with the widest circulation, has been found to be more likely to contest MFM, a position which can be read as tacit endorsement of the meat eating status quo. This reinforces the work of Almiron and Zoppeddu (2015) who found, in their analysis of national news media in Spain and Italy, that right-leaning newspapers showed a higher degree of scepticism and contrarianism in reporting the relationship between meat eating and climate change. Second, de-meatification has its own geographies which have begun to be revealed through the analysis of regional reporting and as such would merit further investigation. Although the findings from this analysis cannot be seen as comprehensive, due to restrictions on accessing regional newspapers in Lexis Nexis, a distinct perspective was clearly observable. Regional newspapers with a predominantly rural audience, including a significant animal agriculture constituency, are more likely to problematise demands for lower levels of meat eating made by MFM and similar initiatives. This in itself is to be expected but it does suggest that there is work to be done in engaging further the farming industry in discussion about meat production and consumption.
The third point of clarification is that the media debate surrounding de-meatification, as this is associated with MFM, is one that is not strongly politicised (Singer, 2016, makes a similar argument, albeit in more extended and elaborate form, about Meatless Monday). This is apparent in a number of ways including that the debate fails to engage directly with questions of meat production and consumption governance, even though the reporting is of a civil society campaign and therefore of a process that contributes to an increasingly important food system governance domain (Renting et al. 2012). Only one article published by the liberal press highlighted a lack of government action in relation to food provisioning challenges, providing an explanation for celebrity lead interventions such as MFM xii . More specifically, and as revealed through the quote used in the title of this article, MFM 'takes the politics out of broccoli' because it allows consumers to continue to eat meat rather than compelling them to adopt an entirely plant based diet i.e. it is interpreted in the reporting as an easy and entirely 'reasonable' lifestyle choice. However, taking the politics out of broccoli at best dilutes, and at worst denies de-meatification's concern both with environmental and animal politics.
Although the environmental benefits of less meat eating are addressed directly in the reporting of MFM this is presented for the most part as an 'easy win' i.e. individual behaviour but also institutional structures are not required to change significantly in order to deliver an environmental benefit. Further, the emphasis on health, lifestyle and environmental easy wins means that barely any attention is given to the implications both of meatification and de-meatification for the interests of agricultural animals. That agricultural animals fail to capture the attention of journalists has also been observed in related work outside the UK on national news' coverage of the relationship between meat eating and climate change (e.g. Almiron and Zoppeddu 2015) and of broader reporting of domesticated animals and fish killed for food (Freeman et al. 2011;Khazaal and Almiron 2016). This suggests, at the very least, that there should be a continuing if not an enhanced role for 'critical animal studies' in ongoing debates about demeatification (Fitzgerald and Taylor 2014;Freeman et al. 2011;Evans and Miele 2012;Singer 2016).
Three additional future lines of enquiry are identified. First, the analysis herein has been limited to newspaper articles focused on MFM. This has undoubtedly provided a meaningful and revealing focus of investigation but it is acknowledged that the media debate about meat production and consumption is broader than LMIs. Further analysis of UK national print media reporting of meat in relation to, for example, health, animal rights / welfare, and climate change would be worthwhile in helping to corroborate or contest the evidence herein and could be usefully informed by similar studies undertaken in other national contexts (e.g. Neff et al. 2009;Kiesel 2010;Goodwin and Shoulders 2013;Almiron and Zoppeddu 2015;Lee et al. 2015;Mayes 2015). The broadcast media's role, notably TV and radio, could also be included in this endeavour.
Second, analysis of print and broadcast media for a 'general' rather than specialist audience or profession e.g. the farming press means that issues of importance to the latter might well be missing (Morris et al. 2016). Although this has been partially addressed in the research reported herein through the inclusion of regional newspapers with a predominantly rural consumer base it would be worthwhile examining the agricultural press as part of a wider research effort, as suggested above, that engages agricultural actors in deliberating the challenges of meat production and consumption.
Third, another future line of enquiry could be pursued online through analysis of blogs and social media. The latter is not only challenging the print media as a news source but is an increasingly influential means of mobilising action on controversial matters (e.g. Askanius and Uldam 2011). It specifically provides platforms for an increasingly diverse range of individuals, both expert and lay, and organisations that seek to promote plant based diets but also celebrate meat eating, many of which are oriented to younger audiences.