MEANINGFUL “LIKES”: HOW TO DIGITALLY COMMUNICATE THE ETHICS BEHIND A YOGHURT

For almost forty years the La Fageda cooperative has been working to improve the lives of people with intellectual disabilities and severe mental illnesses in the district of La Garrotxa (Catalonia), while producing one of the best-selling yoghurts in the region (Casadesús-Masanell, Ricart and Mitchell, 2011). The model of its social project puts people at the centre and has been developed on the basis of the principles and anthropological foundations of its founder, Cristóbal Colón (Ribera, 2006). The goal of this research paper is to analyse how the entire social project and the principles behind the yoghurts, jams and ice creams produced by La Fageda are communicated digitally. With this objective in mind, the profiles of the cooperative on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube are analysed, with the addition of in-depth interviews with the founder and with the communications team, as well as with a focus group formed by employees from the company’s various departments. Taken as a whole, this study makes it possible to indicate how the principles, working practice and leadership of La Fageda, with every feature that makes it unique and original, have a coherent presence on social media, and how similar dynamics might be attained both off-line and in the digital realm.