The Educational Power of Images on Social Media to Promote Animal Rights Awareness

Abstract

The viral images seen on social media during the DANA floods in the Valencian Community (Spain) in 2024, depicting extreme situations involving animals, lead us to consider how viewing such images impacts collective education when they include a novel element: animal rescue. We believe that, although the disseminated images only showed one aspect of the catastrophe related to animals, with interventions or omissions in providing assistance, they did fulfill the function of stimulating empathy, fostering vicarious learning, and improving our attitude towards non-human animals through positive, non-violent examples. To this end, a survey was conducted using a virtual questionnaire, focused on the Valencia area, to qualitatively analyze the impact of images viewed on social networks and to assess opinions regarding the perceived social involvement and evolution, both at the time and in comparison with previous generations. This confirms our initial hypothesis that the dissemination of animal rescue images on social networks has an educational function and contributes to the perception of increased animal welfare awareness in society through images of bloodless and exemplary actions. This is the main contribution, with the emerging issue being the demand for animal rescue protocols, which are currently nonexistent in most countries.