Animality has been overlooked or neglected within the communication studies field. In this paper, our purpose is to deconstruct the dominance of anthroparchial worldviews in the field and to examine the potential contribution of feminist animal standpoints to communication research and analysis. Anthroparchy (Cudworth 2005) is a system of intertwined relations of hierarchical domination towards all those oppressed groups and individuals considered “others”, including nonhuman animals and the environment. The otherness and hierarchy is present in markers of difference such as gender, body, coloniality/race, class, and capabilities, which interconnects in complex ways with animality: oppressed collectives tend to be animalised as a strategy of racist, ableist, sizeist, classist and hetero-cis-sexist inferiorization.

Through our theoretical examination, we will show three overlapping dimensions where we can incorporate feminist animal standpoints to better understand the interplay between speciesist oppression and white hetero-male supremacy in media and communication: Technological infrastructures (AI and technological bias towards nonhuman animals, women and dissident genders and sexualities), professional productions (speciesist and hetero-sexist representations by film industry, advertising and public relations), and user-generated content (speciesist and heteronormative content in digital artifacts such as memes produced by Internet users). By focusing on these dimensions, we aim to underline that animality is presented in hegemonic thought and popular culture as a symbol and marker of otherness that defines the habitability or sacrificialness of certain existences (González 2019), displaying the colonial, heteronormative, patriarchal and classist structures that oppress marginalized groups.