Cows on Facebook and Instagram

Abstract

This article analyzes producer-consumer relations in social media marketing in the Swedish dairy industry. The article discusses how ideas of interspecies intimacy are publicly performed in an interactive process between the dairy industry producers and social media users. Two examples from the Swedish dairy industry were chosen for analysis: one Instagram account and one Facebook account. The analysis shows how the pages are premised on spectacularly visualizing the emotional labor and performances of cows for capital accumulation. The dairy industry's social media presence encourages the media users to engage in building the perception that Swedish dairy farms represent an idyll where the cows are willing producers of the milk that is taken from them, and the dairy industry is loving, caring, and compassionate. Thus, the social media marketing represents a co-opting not only of the ideals of participation that social media holds but also of the ideals of ethical consumptions.

Milking Welfare: Bovis Sacer and the Inclusive Thanatopolitics of the Dairy Farm

“…Animal welfare is established through networks of producers, consumers, regulators, media, activists, and others, and is oriented around perceptions of cow experience (Linné 2016; Sørensen and Fraser 2010; Wolf et al. 2016).…”

Recontextualizing Swedish nationalism for commercial purposes: a multimodal analysis of a milk marketing event

“…Products such as Oatly have positioned themselves against milk where the environmental (and health) effects of replacing dairy products with oat-based foods are emphasized (Fuentes & Fuentes, 2017). Currently, Arla mainly capitalizes on romantic representations of the production process: the farm is represented as an idyll , the dairy environment as 'peaceful and natural' and the cows as 'happy cows' (Linné, 2016). And as I point out in this article, Arla seeks to signal that milk production and milk consumption, in addition to the milk product itself, can be seen as infused in a social democratic version of Swedish nationalism.…”

Pup-ularity contest: The advertising practices of popular animal influencers on Instagram

“…In one study, Leppänen, (2015) suggested that blogging by humans in the voice of a dog helped to increase perceived authenticity. This finding is echoed in an exploratory study of the Swedish dairy industry on social media (Linné, 2016) that found that the portrayal of cows in ads helped humanize the dairy industry and improve the perception of the industry as being caring and ethical. Maddox, (2020) interviewed individuals who run Instagram accounts for their pets and identified how individuals hope their "fur babies" will provide followers with joy, and how the accounts are reflective of wider social, cultural, and economic contexts.…”