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Cows on Facebook and Instagram : Interspecies Intimacy in the Social Media Spaces of the Swedish Dairy Industry

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Author

Summary, in English

This article analyses 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 upon spectacularly visualizing the emotional labour 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 not only a co-opting of the ideals of participation that social media holds but also of the ideals of ethical consumptions.

Publishing year

2016-05-04

Language

English

Document type

Conference paper: abstract

Topic

  • Media Studies
  • Social Sciences Interdisciplinary

Keywords

  • Social media
  • Digital labour
  • critical animal studies
  • critical media studies
  • Human-animal studies
  • human-animal relations

Conference name

Media Engagement: Connecting Production, Texts and Audiences

Conference date

2016-05-03 - 2016-05-04

Conference place

London, United Kingdom

Status

Published