An Overview of Veganism on X: Is Veganism a Political Activism or a Dietary Style in the Turkish Case?

Veganism is commonly described as the attempt to avoid, as far as possible, the exploitation and consumption of animals and animal products. It is acknowledged as a collective action aimed at political transformation, not an individual quest for a pure ethical diet. Many times, veganism is misinterpreted as a diet or style of eating. It's a movement against the needless suffering and exploitation of non-human animals. As a result, veganism rejects human consumption habits that harm animals, such as those found in our clothes, food, makeup, and entertainment (Cochrane and Cojocaru, 2023a, 2023b; Linton, 2022). Hence, this study aims to explore how veganism was framed on X (formerly Twitter) and associated with political activism. It claims that veganism is beyond a personal lifestyle, a form of activism providing insight into political change. This paper, which examined the posts of the Vegan Association of Turkey and also 4 news websites, Hurriyet, Haberturk, BirGün, and Bianet, has revealed that the Vegan Association of Turkey dealt with mostly vegan activism patterns but did not refer to the elements of political activism. It also displayed that although the left-wing and alternative news media covered the activist practices of veganism, the sampling news websites mostly framed veganism within nutrition and lifestyle patterns. In particular, the mainstream news media excluded the political and activist roles of veganism from vegan representations. In conclusion, under-representing political constituents of veganism on X means that the hegemonic consumerism culture is reproduced and new perspectives on consumerism, capitalism, gender, and the environment have not been sufficiently debated in the public sphere.