Binary framings in sustainable discourse – semiotics in anti-vegan online communities
(A2026-133298)

AUTHORS

Ivana Beveridge, University of Houston; Jaideep Prabhu, University of Cambridge

ABSTRACT

Anti-vegan sentiment has intensified alongside growing promotion of reduced-meat diets, reflecting socio-cultural tensions around identity and tradition. This study examines how anti-vegan discourse on the r/AntiVegan subreddit constructs meanings around meat-eating and veganism through sociosemiotic approach analyzing verbal and visual signs. It analyses discourse patterns, identity markers, and visual tropes to show how meat consumption is naturalized and valorized as normal, masculine, traditional, and socially cohesive, while veganism is framed as irrational, unhealthy, and divisive. The analysis highlights recurring tropes of deprivation, conspiracy, and mistrust, and narratives from ex vegans that present vegan diets as dangerous or “unnatural”. These findings illuminate how anti-vegan communities reinforce binary oppositions hampering sustainable dietary change, extending work beyond vegan-only and single mode semiotic analyses and informing less polarizing communication.