Recent research has extended the concept of moral entrepreneurialism to corporate actors. We build on this research to investigate how corporations succeed in this effort by uncovering the strategies and tools they employ as moral entrepreneurs. To do so, we examine the corporate discourse of three prominent fast-food firms to identify how they present hamburgers as good food, in a context where beef is increasingly criticized as morally suspect. Based on a discourse analysis of corporate communications and marketing campaigns, we identify three distinct discursive strategies for managing meat criticisms: (1) global managerialism ; (2) aestheticized simplicity (A&W); and (3) nostalgic, personalized appeals (Wendy’s). These strategies are realized through the use of informational tools to shape what customers think and know about beef, and affective tools to influence how customers feel about beef. Together, these corporate strategies speak to the skilful ability of corporate actors to respond to socio-environmental criticisms. Our case shows how fast-food market actors are able to incorporate critique and offer messages that seek to allow people to feel good about eating beef. This case is relevant to understanding the tools that corporations use to be effective moral entrepreneurs. It also provides a deeper understanding of marketing discourse at the nexus of social problems and consumption choices. Mother Jones magazine headline ‘Americans eat six hamburgers a day, and it’s making all of us sicker’ . We use a discourse analysis of corporate communication materials to empirically investigate the discursive strategy each firm employs to present their hamburgers as desirable and as good – as a delicious and morally acceptable meal choice. These discursive strategies speak to the skilful ability of corporate actors to respond to socio-environmental criticisms of their products, and reassure consumers who may have ambivalent feelings about eating meat. In documenting these strategies, we show how each strategy relies on a mix of informational and aesthetic tools to reassure consumers about the moral and aesthetic appeal of hamburgers. Each company also manages what we call a proliferation/obfuscation tension: they provide ample information about their meat products to curious consumers, while strategically highlighting simple solutions, obfuscating some of the most serious problems in the food system.To address this question, we examine the corporate discourse of three prominent fast-food burger chains: McDonald’s , Wendy’s  and a moral conversation . The issue of delicious food is rarely framed as separate and apart from a general category of ‘goodness’. This is especially true in a contemporary foodscape which is dominated by discourses of healthism and obesophobia . AccordiWhile the food system is linked to moral debates, so is the broader economic system of capitalism. A significant tradition of sociological thought emphasizes how markets and morality are co-constituted. The moral economy perspective is rooted in classic works by Economic sociology scholarship includes themes and premises that overlap with and are complimentary to moral economy scholarship, insofar as it emphasizes that markets are always, and inevitably, imbued with moral logics – even when these logics slip below the surface and are naturalized, invisible to the casual observer e.g. . Like clAn important project for moral economy scholarship – and economic sociology – is to unearth and assess taken-for-granted legitimations of market relationships : 264. ScWe follow up on Fourcade and Healy’s suggestion that moral boundaries in the market can be repositioned by moral entrepreneurs. The concept of moral entrepreneurs was introduced by We selected three case studies of the selling of hamburgers – the fast-food restaurant chains of McDonald’s, Wendy’s and A&W. Our method closely resembles the extended case method , which bWe selected our three case studies based on a number of criteria. First, they are three of the largest distributors of hamburgers in Canada, where our study took place. Second, the two larger chains also have an international presence beyond Canada, and therefore are relevant beyond this national context. Third, these three firms have not only conventional advertising and websites but also social media presences, all of which are key venues through which each restaurant chain’s discourse is communicated to consumers. Fourth and finally, these firms represent a range of scales in the fast-food sector, ranging from McDonald’s global hegemonic presence  to Wendy’s as a medium size restaurant chain , to A&W’s relatively small size in the market (850 outlets). To the extent that marketing campaigns might vary with firm size, our cases will allow us to observe such a difference.We observed each restaurant’s discourse in a number of ways. First, we documented in detail messages contained in linguistic and visual texts on their websites. Second, we did the same for their social media presence, specifically their Instagram and Twitter accounts. For websites and social media content, we analysed what was available to Canadian audiences. In the case of McDonald’s, their main website contains a link to pages that are specifically about McDonald’s Canada’s operations. We examined both the main pages directed toward American and international audiences as well as pages that were specifically about Canadian operations. McDonald’s has separate social media accounts for each country with nationally specific content. We examined both US and Canadian accounts to access the variability – or lack thereof – in their messages, given the company’s Canadian-specific sustainability initiative. In the case of Wendy’s, the content of their website was not nationally specific, nor did their social media content regarding sustainability vary by country. As such, we analysed their official US website and social media account. Lastly, A&W has a Canadian-targeted website and a Canadian-specific sustainability campaign, and they also have social media content that is specific to their Canadian restaurants; we focused our analysis on this content.Our third source of data was site visits in local restaurants to document the discourse that was presented through signage, packaging and other materials made available to consumers in the restaurants. The site visits took place in the autumn of 2019, with two visits made to each restaurant chain, with one visit in downtown Toronto and another visit in suburban Toronto. The visits produced information that was intended to triangulate the observations made of the restaurants’ websites and social media accounts.Our discourse analysis began with sensitivity to a range of conceptual issues that had been raised by prior research. We reviewed the discourse to answer the question of how the corporations were selling the burger as a good consumption choice. How were critiques of beef managed? How was the hamburger framed as a desirable consumption choice, and did these framings serve to normalize and valorize that choice? What corporate identity was presented to the consumer to make the messages about hamburgers trustworthy and resonant?The messages on the websites were systematically catalogued and mapped. The mapping allowed us to see both how the messages were organized for presentation to audiences and also what the repertoire of messages was, the messages’ iterations and variations, and how they collectively generated an underlying narrative. The process was undertaken as well for the messages contained in the social media accounts of each restaurant chain. The three authors together reviewed the linguistic and visual messages presented in each firm’s discourse in order to look for patterns in the messages that were relevant to answering our questions about how hamburgers were defended and rendered appealing in the face of public criticism. Through site visits in restaurants, we looked for all forms of communications with customers. We saw the same underlying narrative for each respective restaurant represented in the linguistic and visual messages present in the physical space of the restaurant, although sometimes through textual and visual messages that varied minimally from online.global managerialism , (2) aestheticized simplicity (A&W); and (3) nostalgic, personalized appeals (Wendy’s). Our inductive analysis led us to identify and focus on both affective and informational tools. Affective tools relate to how companies evoke emotional states and produce particular moods – through images, language, and storytelling. Informational tools are the ways in which information about beef production is made available to the consumer. We discuss the proliferation and obfuscation of information, that is, how information is variously presented without restraint or to excess in some instances, or buried, veiled or clouded in other instances. These modes of information were deployed to convey a sense of response to the burger crisis, but one that did not invite critical engagement from consumers. All three companies simultaneously mobilize strategies of obfuscation and proliferation of information, be it through information dumps with little ludic content (Wendy’s); mood-setting image boards with vague textual data (A&W); extensive audiovisual content presented as a polished and authoritative inquiry ; or through abundant but hidden information in a warren of separate websites .We identify three distinct discursive strategies for marketing hamburgers while managing meat critiques: (1) McDonald’s discursive strategy for morally affirming the burger is not immediately evident on their webpage. A disinterested consumer would not find messages about beef sustainability in the front page of their website, which features a minimalist design – photos of burgers against a white background, with little textual information. This is not to say that the company does not provide information about sustainability – it does, extensively so. But only for those who look for it. An online consumer interested in McDonald’s sustainability practices would have to look for the ‘Values in Action’ link at the bottom of the homepage. There, they would be taken to a menu with the options ‘Sustainability Practices’, ‘Good Food’ and ‘Good Planet’. All roads would lead them to McDonald’s corporate homepage , where their sustainability messages are laid out.Scale for Good, McDonald’s positions itself as a global manager of myriad local sustainability projects that produce a presumed end-product of sustainable burgers. Multiple affective and informational tools are combined in order to evoke trust on the brand’s ability to achieve sustainability. We call this strategy global managerialism.By analysing the messages on McDonald’s multiple websites , we found that the company extols the burger through an attempt to morally affirm not only fast food but the entire business model of transnational fast-food chains. Using the slogan global managerialism conveys a sense of ubiquity and competence that invites the consumer’s trust. Unlike Wendy’s and A&W, which emphasize feelings of simplicity, nostalgia and local production (described later), McDonald’s does not attempt to deflect attention from its position as a multinational corporation. The company proudly posits that ‘the size and reach of our business puts us in a unique position to improve people’s lives and the environment’. The Scale for Good campaign emphasizes McDonald’s role in ‘helping set up’ and manage ‘regional multi-stakeholder platforms’ of beef producers in Canada, the USA, Europe, and South America  into something good for ‘people, business, and the planet’.In short, McDonald’s McDonald’s messages about global sustainability are not only concerned about the company’s position as a global entity. Local production is also important to the company’s affirmation of the burger. McDonald’s Canada’s campaign about local, sustainable beef is hailed as a jewel in the corporate crown – a successful case in the larger company’s ‘journey towards beef sustainability’ .. In terAt McDonald’s Canada, [sustainable beef]’s a commitment. A commitment to ensuring we preserve Canada’s most valuable resources for future generations to come. To look after the land, to care for animals, and to provide the best quality food we possibly can without compromise. .McDonald’s use of a language of futurity and their position as global managers of local sustainability projects reaches its apex in the case of McDonald’s Canada. In a campaign advertised on both American and Canadian McDonald’s websites, we learn that in Canada, one particular burger is being produced using ‘sustainable beef’, defined as:The same pound of beef today produces fifteen per cent less greenhouse gas than it did thirty years ago, so our environmental footprint is shrinking. Beef sustainability is a way to produce food so that we don’t run out of the resources that we have. Beef production is really a by-product of what we do. What we really do is ecosystem management. The cattle are the tools that we use to manage that ecosystem. This advertising campaign is composed of six videos embedded in the company’s website .. The viFrom a ranchers’ perspective, sustainability means that I get to take this land right here and pass onto the next generation. That’s the reason we do it, for our kids and grandkids. My thing with sustainability is that, now having a daughter , it allows me the opportunity to make her a part of it, ‘cause if we don’t take care of it, she won’t have an option. Information about sustainability is emphasized in these quotations, but farmers also discuss the affective meanings they ascribe to sustainability. We see this primarily through a theme of futurity that explicitly invokes children and the generational transmission of land as part of the work they are doing to produce McDonald’s beef:Particular to McDonald’s approach to sustainability is how images of futurity are explicitly tied to economic viability, prosperity and inter-family farm succession. While Canadian ranchers interviewed for these ads emphasize the importance of environmental sustainability for children in general, they also focus on how sustainability is important to the transmission of property within families. Affective messages about family are combined with informational tools that convey expert knowledge about farming efficiency. Both messages come together under the guise of future economic prosperity: creating a prosperous business to pass along to the next generation of beef farmers.In McDonald’s restaurant spaces, we see the online affective and informational tools reproduced in physical form, working to convey a sense of efficiency and competence that is characteristic of global managerialist messaging. The décor in the restaurants we visited was vaguely upscale and modern. It featured minimalist aesthetics, a subdued, modern colour palette, and minimal messaging about cattle, farms, burgers or sustainability. In fact, the dominant visual aspect of the interior space was a poster that covered an entire wall to promote the McCafe portion of the restaurant, which positions McDonald’s coffee and pastry products as a high-quality, relatively high-end fast-food choice. The interior spaces we observed seemed designed to create a sense of modernist aesthetic restraint and competence, quality and control. The large touch-screen ordering stations presented an intuitive interface that was highly functional, modern and visually appealing, relying on uncluttered text and a preponderance of white space. Overall, the space of the restaurant stylistically mirrored the broader narrative of competence and professionalism. With respect to meat in particular, the only information we observed was on the packaging for a hamburger we ordered, which arrived in a cardboard container with the brief message ‘not without Canadian beef farmers’. This slogan echoes the sourcing information about the beef found online that emphasizes the goodness (read: sustainability) of Canadian ranching practices. The paucity of hamburger-specific information, which is probably all that many customers will come to know about the beef McDonald’s serves, may contribute to an image of McDonald’s as a well-managed chain able to provide quality food experiences at a large scale, with reliability and integrity; consumers can enjoy a high-quality coffee, without worrying too much or thinking too hard about whether the burger they enjoy is sustainably produced.Conservation International. Affectively, they convey competence and trust through the Scale for Good slogan; and futurity and prosperity through the ‘A More Sustainable Future’ campaign. In terms of informational messages, on the one hand they provide extensive expert knowledge about sustainability – through numerous documents, regulations, and media releases about partnerships. This information, however, is not clearly accessible to a casual consumer who visits the homepage menu or goes to the restaurants – it is available only to those who actively look for it online. On the other hand, obfuscation of information occurs in the more easily accessible messages about meat production, that is, the Canadian campaign about ‘sustainable farmers’. In this section of the website, language about sustainability is vague. The specificities and the actual efficacy of their sustainability project are not discussed. This vagueness is best illustrated by the wordplay found in the restaurant’s cardboard burger container: ‘not without Canadian beef farmers’. This wording symbolically nods to the importance of ‘local’ beef production but does not commit McDonald’s to any particular standard of sustainability to which it could be held accountable.In sum, McDonald’s – both in Canada and in the USA – combines affective and informational tools to convey that eating burgers is good for ‘people, business, and the planet’, as mentioned by the CEO of  Unlike McDonald’s, however, A&W has a more aestheticized approach and less textual content, which centres on attractive green imagery and short narratives about families who raise cattle. The key theme found in the A&W strategy is simplicity – both in terms of its green aesthetics and information. There is no detailed information on sustainability practices, and unlike McDonald’s, they do not reference expert knowledge on how to maintain ecosystems. Instead, images of ranchers and cattle grazing on open plains are accompanied by short captions that hint at sustainability projects (e.g. grassland management). Visually, the pictures suggest a ‘less is more’ aesthetic of green minimalism which employs clean design and ample earth-tones imagery.Like McDonald’s, A&W Canada’s homepage does not provide the user with sustainability messages right away. The curious consumer must follow a similar path as with McDonald’s and go through the successive hyperlinks ‘Our values’, ‘Our food’, ‘Proteins’, and lastly ‘Beef’, to find the company’s information on beef sustainability. A&W presents an advertising campaign that has some similarities to that of McDonald’s Canada, featuring Canadian ranchers.Eschewing long explanations or pages with abundant text, the website showcases appealing visuals of grasslands combined with minimal texts suggesting sustainable ranching practices. The slogan ‘Keeping it Simple’ appears juxtaposed to an image of two farmers (a man and a woman) on horseback, accompanied by their dog and standing in the grasslands. Underneath, smaller images showcase cattle roaming free in open plains, the same farmers riding horses among the cattle, and a close-up of the grass. Each image is followed by short captions like ‘natural process’ and ‘respecting the land’ .Information about cattle raising practices is mostly concentrated in a 2:55 minute video featuring interviews with ranching families, who are depicted as hard-working, straightforward rural people committed to their farms and ‘doing what’s right for the animal’. The interviews show how each rancher supports a ‘simple’ approach to beef production. Most of the farmers are depicted riding horses (rather than driving ATVs) to herd cattle; they wear cowboy hats and are shown in multiple scenes walking or riding horses with their children. A key theme of this video is how their ‘simple’ approach to beef production allows them to raise cattle without the use of a growth-promoting hormone implant. In the words of one farmer featured in the video, ‘ranching is an amazingly simple endeavour. The hard part is keeping it simple’ .’. The details of ‘simple’ and ‘natural’ ranching practices are left vague. What is clearly established is a strong, affective connection between local beef producers, nature and health. This is accomplished through messages that emphasize the lack of hormones or steroids in the beef and ranchers’ rootedness in local grasslands where cows ‘naturally’ graze for their food – contra popular negative perceptions of factory farms where cows are confined in small stalls. The campaign features idyllic images of cattle raised in open plains and ranchers horseback riding with vague language about ‘nature’ (‘their modern approach to ranching is letting nature do its job’). A&W’s simple, ‘less is more’ approach communicates a win-win model of fast-food: their hamburgers are all the more delicious because they are good for the environment. Affectively, they convey the beauty of a simple approach that is linked to natural ways of raising cows and to better burgers for consumers.Through its campaign slogan, ‘Keeping It Simple’, A&W reinforces a link between simplicity and ‘natural strategies’ that serve discerning consumers and the environment: ‘As stewards of the land, Ross and Christine keep it simple in order to maintain a sustainable ecosystemFor us, great burgers come first. So it’s only natural that we’re the first and only national burger restaurant in Canada to serve beef raised without artificial hormones or steroids, from select ranches in Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand. We’re committed to offering Canadians burgers they can confidently enjoy, free of additives, fillers or preservatives — just 100% pure beef. But while the campaign focuses on local producers rooted in specific grassland contexts, and features several Canadian ranch families located in different provinces, their beef patties are not entirely produced locally, as per the text in their website:Here, information on transnational meat production is obfuscated by vague language around ‘Canadianness’ and beef. ‘Canadian burgers’ are not necessarily burgers made of Canadian beef, but rather a ‘100% pure beef’ burger – made in Canada or elsewhere. Locality becomes a nexus for ‘natural’, which in turn signifies the lack of additives and fillers in the meat, not the practices of raising cattle and processing the beef.  .In short, our analysis of A&W discourse suggests that the firm invests heavily in affective tools and in obfuscation of information to morally affirm the burger and beef consumption, producing a deeply aestheticized image of sustainability as natural, green and local while providing little information about sustainability practices. A&W’s marketing material does draw attention to its use of hormone-free cattle to make its burgers, a message that arguably appeals to health-conscious consumers seeking a hormone-free burger . Claims about ‘natural’ ranching methods and sustainable production techniques are conveyed less through specific textual claims, and more through appealing visual images that emphasize simple design, open-spaces and green landscapes where cattle can forage freely.This mix of affective and informational tools was powerfully present in the physical spaces of A&W restaurants. In the restaurants we visited, the décor was highly stylized and heavily featured green imagery of farms and fields, as well as wood/wood-like décor, as shown in Such messages were present on myriad signs on nearly every horizontal surface, on the food packaging, the placemat on the tray, and the napkins. The messages covered issues of environmental sustainability , as well as animal welfare and health. The colour scheme and claims presented on their Instagram account were replicated within the store space, which echoes themes of farming with care and avoidance of steroids and hormones in the raising of cattle. Significantly, the messaging at the same time highlights aesthetic concerns, both in references to the ‘great tasting’ food, and also through the artistic visual style. The wood material of the sign references a simple, mid-century modernist style, and the black outline of a cow superimposed on a blue cow figure is an artistic representation of the animal. There were many comparable signs throughout the restaurant. Through the marketing materials, as well as the signs and décor at A&W, the affective and informational messages came together to achieve the strategy of aestheticized and simple sustainability.nostalgia and freshness as affective messages to affirm the burger. Contra a negative public image of conventional mass-produced, frozen burgers, Wendy’s claims that their burgers have always been ‘fresh, never frozen’. Unlike McDonald’s minimalist white spaces, or A&W’s earth-toned abstract images of farms, Wendy’s features numerous photorealist images of meaty burgers. More broadly, they highlight the positive qualities of their romantic past of cooking fresh, delicious burgers  is repeatedly made:We keep our beef fresh by sourcing it from North American cattle ranches so close to our restaurants that we don’t have to freeze it, unlike some of our competitors who freeze their beef because they’re getting it from faraway places . . . While some others source their beef from as far away as Australia, we stick close to home, so we can ship it fresh to our restaurants. Wendy’s slogan, ‘Fresh Never Frozen’, accompanies every message and informational blurb about beef in their website. The word ‘freshness’ appears to be a proxy through which the company conveys associations of fresh, wholesome food that is not globally shipped, and is instead sourced ‘locallyWith purpose. On purpose. Purposeful . . . It’s meant going against the grain of conventional fast food to insist on fresh beef for our hamburgers rather than frozen patties . . . Ironically, this idea of purposeful sourcing wasn’t actually on purpose. It grew out of our decades-long quest to find the best quality ingredients to make the best tasting hamburgers. The link between freshness and ‘local’, nearby sourcing is also presented in nostalgic terms, pointing to the past of the brand – their burgers have always been fresh, and therefore, ‘purposefully sourced’. ‘Local’ sourcing of fresh beef is framed as a consequence of their commitment to ‘freshness’ and deliciousness:Wendy’s emphasis on ‘freshness’ is also commonly reproduced on their social media platforms. The company is known for being playful and sarcastic on Twitter, a feature which works rhetorically to position their message as personal, and individualizing, setting the company apart from negative associations of anonymous fast-food corporations. Through funny online jokes and interactions, Wendy’s may appear more like a wise-cracking friend, and less like a faceless corporation that promotes social and ecological harms through its products. Much of the humour of Wendy’s social media presence derives from their open confrontation of other fast-food chains, especially McDonald’s. On the platform, Wendy’s opposes McDonald’s frozen burgers with their own ‘fresh, never frozen’ products. One tweet from their account, posted on 6 March 2018, states: ‘Hey @McDonalds, heard the news. Happy #NationalFrozenFoodDay to you for all the frozen beef that’s sticking around in your cheeseburgers.’ Another tweet, this one a reply to a tweet on McDonald’s account, posted on 30 March 2017, reads: ‘So you’ll still use frozen beef in MOST of your burgers in ALL of your restaurants? Asking for a friend.’ For Wendy’s, ‘fresh’ seem to function as a moral counterpoint to the common association between burgers and heavily industrialized, mass-produced frozen food. By positioning its burgers as superior alternatives to McDonald’s, a brand known for its industrial and processed burgers, Wendy’s establishes a connection between freshness, flavour, and morality.information dump. Of all three brands, Wendy’s is the one that provides the most readily available information. But unlike its counterparts, there is no effort in aestheticizing most of this information: website users who look for information on animal welfare and beef sourcing will be redirected to pages filled with reams of text and just a few images, mostly logos and small graphics. Consumers are not lured into these webpages with appealing aesthetics, but the loosely organized information is there to satisfy an interested party.In terms of informational tools about its beef production line, Wendy’s website engages in information proliferation, to the extent that it creates an The Square Deal, where press-release-like stories are posted. There is no clear sustainability category nor an obvious ‘green consumption’ tagging system – posts about sustainability and beef sourcing do exist, but are mixed in together with other posts filed under ‘food’ and ‘community’. Thinking about these marketing materials together, it appears as though Wendy’s strategy is to divert, or at least not draw attention to concerns about the sustainability of beef products. Instead, it aims to moralize the Wendy’s burger through positive associations with nostalgic imagery, freshly procured meat patties , and a quirky online persona that presents as a wise-cracking, friendly figure.Wendy’s online presence also has another peculiarity: aside from their homepage and social media pages, the company runs a blog, Within the restaurant spaces, the same online affective and informational tools emphasizing nostalgia, freshness and deliciousness are apparent. One of the restaurants we visited displayed a sign near the entrance that said: ‘Welcome to real, Welcome to fresh.’ This sign’s message used plain language to communicate a down-to-earth, traditional welcome to consumers, and symbolically conveyed values of sincerity and traditional, ‘real’ food preparation methods using fresh meat – as opposed to the frozen, long-distance commodity chains associated with McDonald’s. One of the most prominent signs inside both restaurants, presented on a large banner positioned behind the cash registers, stated ‘100% Fresh Never Frozen Canadian Beef’, a repetition of one of the most prominent informational messages made online. There were quotations from the founder, Dave Thomas, in other signs, again highlighting Wendy’s ties to tradition and to a specific personality (‘Dave’) who conveys trust and quality. Square Deal blog posts, they do not have a coherent strategy that merges affective and informational messages about sustainability and beef. Sustainability information resides in the background of website pages, while the spotlight shines on an affective message emphasizing old-fashioned, delicious-looking burgers made with fresh meat. This focus might be due to Wendy’s claim to their ‘classic’ status: their affective messaging about ‘classic burgers’ precedes the sustainability era in marketing. Precisely because nostalgia is their main affective tool, more contemporary marketing strategies related to sustainability have little part to play in their branding and are instead conveyed through textual dumps that are not designed to draw in widespread audience, but rather tend to obfuscate. Wendy’s also appears to rely on a semiotic ambiguity regarding the meaning of ‘fresh’, ‘never frozen’, and ‘Canadian’ beef. Although these characteristics are not in practical terms related to the animal welfare, environmental, or health criticisms of beef, they may nonetheless assuage customers’ potential concerns – or at least combat negative associations of fast-food burgers as mass-produced, industrialized, and frozen. By highlighting aspects of their beef sourcing that are often associated with small-scale or local food production, and associating their brand with a specific, likeable persona  they might be invoking for customers an image of their hamburgers as addressing, however opaquely, prevalent criticisms of beef as part of an anonymous, harmful mass-market commodity.Of all the brands, Wendy’s presents a large disjuncture between their affective and informational messaging. While there are scattered references to sustainability practices in their website and on scattered In this article we document and analyse the marketing discourses employed by three fast food chains to sell hamburgers during a time when the moral standing of the hamburger is under attack. The three distinct strategies we identify at McDonald’s, A&W, and Wendy’s all rely on combining affective and informational tools to present the hamburger as an appealing, legitimate, ‘good’ consumption option. We have shown how fast-food corporations work as moral entrepreneurs that intervene in market-culture spaces to attempt to shape moral evaluations of food choices : 301.Contra a negative image of frozen, industrial, assembly-line patties , Wendy’s conveys a personalized image of its founder, Dave, flipping old-fashioned fresh-meat burgers sourced from Canadian farms. Among the three cases, Wendy’s presents the weakest form of moral entrepreneurship to the extent that it does not emphasize sustainability issues directly in the marketing that is most visible. Future research could explore how and why different firms adopt different forms of moral entrepreneurship.The three strategies were similar insofar as they presented hamburgers as worthy food choices and did so with both affective and informational tools. However, they were different in the extent to which they relied on one tool over the other. Moreover, the strategies contained different messages that were related to each firm’s brand identity. For McDonald’s, the goodness of a burger depends on the firm’s capacity as a transnational manager of sustainability issues. A casual McDonald’s consumer may not think about issues of meat sustainability when they walk into a restaurant, with its minimalist signage and modern aesthetic, but a worried McDonald’s consumer consulting the website can rest assured that a responsible force much larger than them is handling the issue, working to make sure that meat comes from sustainable farms around the world. In the case of A&W, its moral entrepreneurship hinges on an affective and informational strategy emphasizing a simple message of sustainability and green aesthetics. Of all three firms, the A&W strategy works the most explicitly  to position their burgers as a sustainable choice that protects virtuous family farmers who act as ecological stewards. The strategy of moral entrepreneurship at Wendy’s largely sidesteps environmental critiques of meat consumption, filing this information away in plain webpages, and instead rests on its capacity to harness affective themes of nostalgia. Moral entrepreneurship is becoming a more common project among corporations as interest in and awareness of ethical consumption has increased in recent decades . ConcernAs our study focuses on marketing content, we cannot speak to how these moral entrepreneurship projects resonate with consumers – a project that is deserving of future research. Going out for fast-food hamburgers remains very popular, raising the question of what role moral entrepreneurship plays. Eating fast food, and dining out more generally, incorporates aesthetic, social, and economic dimensions see . To whatOur data are based on Canadian case studies, and future research could explore the extent to which the tools we identify are present in cases of corporate moral entrepreneurship in other national contexts and for other kinds of firms beyond the restaurant sector. We expect that our findings have relevance beyond the national context we studied in part because the ‘grammar’ of marketing evolves within a transnational field, and also because our cases include data from McDonald’s American website, and from Wendy’s globally available Twitter account. Further research should explore potential differences in the tools of moral entrepreneurship across regions of the globe, for instance through a comparison of marketing discourse in the Global North and Global South. Moreover, case studies of different fast-food firms might also reveal different tools for moral entrepreneurship, especially within a different market sector like the ‘fast casual’ which targets a more ‘elevated’ yet convenient experience. Outside of the restaurant sector (e.g. automobiles), moral entrepreneurship could employ still other tools and strategies.great transformation, the third and current stage of capitalism (from the 1970s to present time) is characterized by the global commodification of nature and by civil society’s resistance to the impending environmental catastrophe. We argue that moral entrepreneurialism in the context of the fast-food industry works to counter and reconcile the inherent contradictions of global capitalism – of which transnational burger chains are a powerful cultural symbol – as consumers and civil society become increasingly concerned with its ecological impacts.At the broadest level of analysis, as burgers increasingly become symbols of environmental disaster, corporations are called upon to deflect, reframe, and negotiate their roles in environmental practices. As suggested by good, especially in a larger socio-political context where meat-eating has been challenged. Our findings highlight the extent to which corporations can veer far from the stereotypically amoral market actor trope. Instead, we see strong moral stances amongst these corporations, stances that also happen to be self-serving, but that nonetheless contribute to broad cultural ideas of what constitutes good food and responsible consumption. Although scholars have looked at corporate pressure to deliver corporate social responsibility and ethical consumption, especially in relation to alternative food, (e.g. Our goal here has been to document the extensive efforts made by firms to use affective and informational tools to position their foods not just as delicious, but as morally od, e.g. , our stu


The COVID-19 pandemic affected the mental health of pregnant and postpartum women in unique, unprecedented ways. Given the impossibility of delivering face-to-face care, digital platforms emerged as a first-line solution to provide emotional support. This qualitative study sought to examine the role that a closed Facebook group (CFG) played in providing social support for Mexican perinatal women and to explore the concerns they shared during the COVID-19 pandemic. A thematic analysis of all the posts in the CFG yielded nine main categories: (1) COVID-19 infections in participants and their families; (2) fear of infection; (3) infection prevention; (4) health services; (5) vaccines; (6) concerns about non-COVID-19-related health care; (7) effects of social isolation; (8) probable mental health cases; and (9) work outside the home. Participants faced stressful situations and demands that caused intense fear and worry. In addition to household tasks and perinatal care, they were responsible for adopting COVID-19 preventive measures and caring for infected family members. The main coping mechanism was their religious faith. The CFG was found to be a useful forum for supporting perinatal women, where they could share concerns, resolve doubts, and obtain information in a warm, compassionate, and empathetic atmosphere. Health providers would be advised to seek new social media to improve the quality of their services. The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a global crisis, causing millions of infections and deaths. Data show that Mexico had a less effective response to the pandemic than comparable countries, with COVID-19 infection and death rates being among the world’s highest despite the fact that Mexico ranked near the bottom in testing ,3.Coping with stress and mental health during the pandemic has been an even greater challenge for specific vulnerable groups, such as perinatal women. Pregnancy and childbirth are life events requiring complex adaptation processes, which alter the emotional state of a significant number of mothers and can trigger anxiety and depressive symptoms or clinical disorders ,5. MotheA narrative review showed that fear may have been one of the strongest psychosocial stressors associated with COVID-19, such as fear of contagion, the future, and losing one’s job in occupations where working from home was not an option . PregnanPsychosocial stressors may have been particularly acute in low-middle-income countries (LMIC), where many people were unable to isolate themselves as fully as required, probably for financial reasons, since most breadwinners (62%) were required to go to work at some time during the pandemic . NegativStudies of the effect of the pandemic on the mental health of Mexican women found higher scores for total stress and contextual stressors, such as financial problems and work difficulties, than in other population groups . It was In regard to Mexican women’s mental health during COVID-19, 33.2% of pregnant mothers suffered stress and 17.5% depression . Other sPotential factors affecting mental health due to the COVID-19 outbreak included social isolation, concerns about illness, distance from family and friends, loneliness, and changes in relationships ,26,27. TAs in other countries, the pandemic had an enormous impact on health care provision in Mexico. Many hospitals only admitted patients with COVID-19, referring others elsewhere to limit the risk of transmission. The number of prenatal checkups was restricted and hospitals were repurposed for care delivery . During Mental health services were already overstretched in many countries prior to the pandemic. In Mexico, only 6.4% of those with some form of mental illness receive the care they need  and mentAgainst this background, the COVID-19 outbreak intensified global concern over strategies for promoting mental wellbeing and targeting the increased risk factors for mental illness . Both meFranz et al.  note thaIn short, pregnant and postpartum women in Mexico faced unique challenges during the COVID-19 outbreak, when the possibility of receiving mental health care for stressful situations and anxiety and depression symptoms was almost nonexistent. The main aim of this study was therefore to examine the role that a closed Facebook group (CFG) could play in providing social support and information to Mexican pregnant and postpartum women during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, to our knowledge, only a handful of studies, none conducted in Latin America, have documented how perinatal women experienced pregnancy, childbirth, and caring for a new baby during the lockdown and reopening phases. A second aim was to explore the experiences, concerns, and emotional wellbeing during the pandemic that mothers shared in the CFG. The findings may provide guidelines for the use of social media during future crises to reduce stress by providing social support, and to prevent psychological symptoms from progressing to clinically diagnosed illness.A qualitative analysis seemed to be the appropriate approach for these aims , as it whttps://www.facebook.com/saludemocionalperinatal; accessed on 10 December 2022). The profile was created two months after the COVID-19 lockdown in Mexico (March 2020) by a research group specializing in perinatal mental health, to provide information and emotional support to pregnant and postpartum women during the pandemic. Women could join the CFG if they said they were in the perinatal period and committed to the following guidelines: maintaining the confidentiality of subjects’ posts and comments, keeping the group a safe place where everyone felt free to express their emotions and experiences without being judged or rejected, and not making referrals to professionals in private practice or posting advertisements. The CFG facilitator, a clinical psychologist, commented on subjects’ posts a few times a day. Various hotlines for psychological support from public and private health/educational institutions that provided mental health care were offered. Due to the public nature of Facebook, questionnaires about personal data were not included; the main aim was simply to provide the service.The qualitative study was based on an analysis of posts and comments in the CFG “Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period during the COVID-19” , from 2 May 2020 to 31 October 2021, were retrieved and pasted into a Word document and subsequently coded and categorized using thematic analysis . ThroughThe qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze posts. It was undertaken in six steps. (1) All authors read the entire Word document with posts and comments to familiarize themselves with the content and participated in stage two. (2) Generation of preliminary categories and codes. (3) Search for the themes in each pandemic stage. (4) Cross-checking to obtain a consensus. Three authors were involved in stages three and four. (5) Second round of reading all posts and comments using the revised categories, definitions, and naming of topics. (6) Drafting of the report. All authors participated in stage five and made suggestions for the final draft. Repeated cross-checking and reviewing were central, as the initial coding was applied to the entire dataset, and solid support was required to ensure reliability .The categories defined were: (1) COVID-19 infections in participants and their families; (2) fear of COVID-19 infection; (3) infection prevention; (4) health services; (5) COVID-19 vaccines; (6) concerns about non-COVID-19-related health care; (7) effects of social isolation; (8) probable mental health cases; and (9) work outside the home.According to the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) , researcWe will first describe the categories of situations subjects faced that created stress and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequently analyze the group dynamics to find evidence of the support provided by the CFG.As can be seen from Infections close to the delivery date caused the greatest worry: “My baby will be born in two weeks. I don’t know how we got this [COVID-19] because my husband [only] went out for essentials. Sometimes I feel sad because this happened right at the end [of my pregnancy]”. The CFG was a space where women could share their experience of COVID-19: “I see that almost everyone here has got COVID right at the end of their pregnancy”. When mothers became infected, they worried about the consequences for the fetus and for nursing: “My baby is two months old. They gave me azithromycin… but they say I shouldn’t breastfeed while I’m taking it, but I’m afraid, first that my milk will stop and second that I will infect my baby”.The women were responsible for looking after their partners, children, and other family members with COVID-19: “My father had symptoms, and I had no choice but to take care of him, and then I got sick… I didn’t think about the wellbeing of my baby or myself: we were both at the same risk of getting COVID, or even more so”.The prevailing feeling was an enormous fear of getting COVID-19: “Honestly, I am panicking at the thought of getting COVID”. This was true especially as they neared their expected due dates. The women expressed their fears in different ways: “fear”, “sadness”, “worry”, “terror”, “uncertainty”, “anxiety”, and “stress”. They described these feelings as “intense” and “constant”, to the extent that they thought their emotional state had been greatly affected: “I cry all the time”, “I am overwhelmed by the situation”, “Bad luck could strike at any moment”, “I get stressed out”, “I get terrified”. The lack of knowledge about the new disease caused uncertainty: “We have been alright so far but I’m terrified of getting sick and having something happen right at the end [of my pregnancy]”. When there was a total lockdown except for essential tasks, the fear of infection was due to their partners’ having to go to work. When the reopening came, and employees were required to return to the workplace, this increased women’s fear that they themselves would be the source of infection: “I just think that hopefully this won’t happen to us, that when I have to go back to work I won’t infect my baby… [I have] no end of emotions”.Women also assumed responsibility for implementing strict preventative measures: “I put a face shield [on my baby], I avoided getting close to anyone, I only did what was absolutely necessary and went straight home. I used hand sanitizer after any contact, and when I got home, I took a shower and bathed my baby”. In addition to these measures, some women took other precautions to take care of themselves, “to maintain their physical and mental health, such as eating healthily and getting enough rest”.For some women, taking these measures seriously created problems with their families. “My husband sometimes thinks I overreact, because when he is called in to work, I insist that he take a shower when he comes home”. One husband looked for information to show that his wife was overreacting: “My husband started reading articles to prevent me from washing clothes so often”. Another kind of family problem was caused by mothers trying to protect their babies: “After the baby was born, I didn’t let anyone visit”.One area of concern was being able to find a hospital where women could have their babies delivered without the risk of COVID-19 infection: “Public clinics [are] where [women] are most at risk, since people go there for everything”. Women therefore looked for “a hospital with a maternity service free of COVID”. Opinions regarding public hospitals were mixed: “It’s good for us to have our babies there, since they are familiar with all their health problems, like gestational diabetes”. Most women looked for hospitals that did not treat people with COVID-19: “I found a hospital that had a maternity department free of COVID”. If they could afford to, they preferred to go to private hospitals, where their partners could accompany them. Those who had previously given birth noted that this time their experience was very different: “You [go into] the delivery room with a face shield and mask”. Family members were not allowed to visit. For women who had tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus during labor, the situation was complicated: “They were admitted to the COVID department and had to stay in the hospital next to others who were infected, and watch those who were seriously ill dying”. Their babies were discharged immediately unless there were complications.During the third and fourth stages, women began to share questions about getting vaccinated during pregnancy and nursing, although there were still no recommendations from either Mexican or international authorities. “Have any of you been vaccinated against COVID-19? I’m 25 weeks pregnant and want to get vaccinated”. “I’ve seen that expectant and nursing mothers should not get vaccinated, but I’m not a hundred per cent sure”. Specialist providers did not have much information either: “I have already been to two gynecologists and they told me not to get vaccinated”. The decision was left up to the women: “It’s my turn to get vaccinated tomorrow. I spoke to two obstetricians, and both told me it was my decision”. During the fifth stage, health authorities began vaccinating pregnant women, but it failed to include sufficient information. The exchanges on Facebook focused on which vaccine would be best for them as well as the side effects: “My baby is three months old today and is breastfeeding. I want to get vaccinated, but I’m afraid, because it’s time for his vaccinations at three months, so if I get vaccinated and they vaccinate him, could it be a problem for him?”As described in They also shared concerns about their babies’ health: “My baby was born with fetal tachycardia, and his heart could have stopped at any moment”. “My baby was born with a diaphragmatic hernia, and they have already operated on him, but it didn’t turn out well. They treated him again to give him dialysis, but it looks like his kidneys aren’t working”. They also shared problems such as bleeding during pregnancy.Being unable to leave the house and have contact with other people affected all the women, particularly when they had complications during pregnancy and were confined to bed: “Being shut in, the worry, and not being able to get out of bed is affecting my nerves”. For those who were pregnant, “not being able to physically buy things for my baby” caused them distress. The lack of social contact was also difficult: “Yes, I miss my mother’s hugs a lot, but we have talked a lot on video calls”. They also experienced a lack of support in household tasks once the baby was born: “We don’t have anyone to help us at home while I am recovering, so I rely on what my husband can do”. There were tensions in relationships with extended family members, since the women had to limit visits for fear that their babies would be infected: “For me, the most complicated thing has been keeping the grandparents and family from getting close to my baby”. “Sometimes relatives get offended, but you have to calmly try to make them understand and ensure that they not [visit], because you are afraid”. Their fears concerning social isolation also centered on the effects of the latter on the baby: “I don’t know how I am going to raise my baby in isolation, limiting contact with her surroundings, since that is also part of her psychosocial development”.The emotional distress women experienced is clear from their testimonials. Throughout the five stages, there were only four cases of mental disorders diagnosed by specialists whom they had consulted for various problems: (1) borderline personality disorder: “The past few weeks have been really difficult, everything makes me cry. I don’t have any desire to get out of bed, I don’t even want my partner close to me, because I don’t know how to explain what is happening to me while I’m crying”; (2) prenatal depression: “I am pregnant now and getting psychological treatment, for prenatal depression, apparently”; (3) postpartum depression: “After my daughter was born, I started to have chest pains and cried a lot. I went to see my gynecologist and he told me it was postpartum neurosis. Well, you do what you can, and I’m gradually dealing with my attacks”; and (4) bipolar disorder: “I was severely depressed, since I have bipolar disorder. For that reason, they watched me very carefully while I was pregnant, and I have to take medication for the rest of my life. There are thoughts you can’t control with depression, but when you take the medication. it changes your life for the better”.There were also two cases which, based on the symptoms reported, were considered possible clinical cases. One was possible prenatal depression. Facilitator: “If you have anxiety and depression, it is important to see your psychiatrist. Between your gynecologist and your psychiatrist, you will be able to find the appropriate treatment, and then both of you [you and your baby] will be safe”. One mother was grieving the loss of her baby during pregnancy: “I don’t even know how to express my feelings. My husband and I planned to have a second baby, and at the end of the year we found out that we had succeeded… They told me two things, one that made me very happy, that I was going to have twins, but the other was that it was high risk… The babies died, and since then I have been very sad, angry, stressed, and I blame myself for not having done more… They recommended psychotherapy, but my appointment was canceled because of the pandemic”.For some women, working from home caused “moments of anxiety and stress because of the amount of work involved”. Those who began to return to work, even if they adopted all the self-care measures, “lived in a state of paranoia and always felt they had a sore throat”. Their families criticized them for putting their own and their babies’ health at risk by going to work. Those who did so were asked “whether they didn’t love the baby and themselves, and whether they would infect their families by going to work”.The greatest anxiety during all the stages was the lack of clarity regarding maternity leave. During the first two trimesters of pregnancy, the possibility of working at home depended on the “flexibility of each employer, regardless of whether there had been COVID cases at the business”. The degree of stress over the return to work was related to the type of work: “My job is to help people, have contact with them, take their pictures without a mask”. Women were also unaware whether they could stay at home while they were breastfeeding to avoid putting their babies at risk. The attitude of the staff at certain health centers was insensitive: “I saw a medical director, and she rudely told me that pregnant women had to go to work as usual and that they were not a vulnerable group”. Some women had to return to work once they had completed the vaccination scheme: “When I’ve had both doses, I’ll have to go back to that life… I’m very scared, I’m stressed out, anxious, I’m always on edge”.As these descriptions show, perinatal women experienced extremely stressful situations during this period. The following sections describe how the facilitator and the participants responded to these experiences.(a) The Facilitator. At every stage, the facilitator reviewed posts and provided any comments she considered necessary a few times a day. During the first stage, she encouraged women to participate (“We would like to listen to you”) and reiterated the purpose of the CFG . She provided suggestions for managing emotions, such as “breathing and relaxation exercises, mindfulness, meditation, keeping a journal or talking to a trusted person, as well as keeping active and/or exercising”. She encouraged them to “keep in touch with your loved ones by phone, texting, or social media”, as well as by “creating virtual support networks with other mothers and with institutions”. She took care to thank the women for their participation.The facilitator expressed empathy in all her interventions with the situations women were experiencing. “We are sorry you are experiencing this situation”. “Right now, because of the pandemic and isolation, pregnant and postpartum women have had to experience many losses, absences, shortages, changes, and adjustments that have caused stress, anxiety, fear, uncertainty, frustration, pain, and a lack of motivation, among other emotions”. She reiterated that she was there to support them. The participants thanked her for being in the CFG: “Thank you for accepting me into the group. Thank you very much”. The facilitator was extremely active during the first three stages, but the women gradually began to participate more, and in the last two stages “they fully appropriated the CFG”.(b) The Participants. At first, there was limited participation by members of the group, but they encouraged one another. Over the five stages of the pandemic, they showed trust in one another, sharing important problems: “I had a difficult pregnancy”, “This situation we are experiencing is very confusing and complicated”, “I am very worried because my husband has COVID symptoms”. They supported one another at all times: “Relax, everything is going to be alright. God will help us get through it”. The majority recommended actions such as thinking positively, not focusing on negative emotions, entrusting themselves to God, and prayer: “Don’t lose faith. Leave everything in the hands of God”, “I trusted God and the doctors who reassured me”.The women were very empathetic in their participation: “The same thing happened to me”. They addressed each other affectionately: “Hi beautiful”, “Hi mommies”, “Darling, I’m just the same”, “The same thing just happened to me”, “I think you’ll understand me”, “Yes, I understand you”, “Don’t blame yourself, it’s normal”, “Relax, I had COVID when I was pregnant and my baby is fine”. They shared information that had been useful to them: “Don’t self-medicate”. “Talk to your doctor”, “Let’s write a sentence every day that motivates us”, “Take care of yourself; I really didn’t think I was going to survive”, “Have the best possible hygiene when you nurse your baby”, “Don’t stop nursing him”. They also shared information to encourage those who were afraid of being vaccinated. They found reading each other’s comments very helpful: “reading what you shared somehow makes me feel more secure in this experience (of the pandemic), which is totally new for many people”, “it is very comforting to know that I am not the only one”, “what everyone says is very reassuring”.The women thanked each another for their advice and for being there: “Thank you to everyone who has commented”, “Thank you for sharing your experience”, “Thanks to each and every one of you. Believe me, your words are comforting. It is a very difficult situation I wouldn’t wish on anyone, your words are encouraging”, “Thank you from the bottom of my heart”.Apart from these expressions of gratitude, they also felt understood and accompanied. “When I joined this group, I was like you, I had many fears. By reading [the posts] I was able to clarify doubts I had. It encourages me that we are here to support and help each other”. They shared their satisfaction with the experience. “They recommended this group so I could receive support and I really like it, because I no longer feel alone”.The aim of this study was to examine the role that Facebook played in providing information and social support for Mexican pregnant and postpartum women and to explore the experiences and challenges they shared in the CFG during the COVID-19 pandemic.Pregnancy and childbirth are life events that always require a complex adaptation process, which affects the emotional state of a significant number of mothers. From the comments and posts in the CFG, it was clear that for Mexican perinatal women, coping with COVID-19 was extremely challenging and demanding. Our findings are in line with other researchers’ observations about the COVID-19 pandemic being difficult for women globally, and particularly stressful for perinatal women, as they faced uniquely demanding situations during this period ,49.Becoming infected with COVID-19 elicited intense emotional reactions. The most stressful period during the pandemic for the women in our sample was the outbreak, with the sudden lockdown, changes in health systems, and uncertainty about the new disease and its effects on fetuses and newborn babies, which is similar to what has been found in other countries . HendrixSeveral posts in the CFG related to mothers being infected with COVID-19, and the fear, stress, and worry they experienced. They were concerned about the possible effects of the virus on their fetuses, and how it might alter their childbirth and breastfeeding plans. Becoming infected close to their expected due date was even more distressing, as it meant they would be separated from their newborn babies. Intense, constant, acute fear was one of the strongest feelings experienced among the participants, which they also described as worry, anguish, and stress. The fear and stress extended to all situations, not only to possible infection, but also to the future, having to go out to work or take the baby to the doctor, and to the effects of COVID-19 on the baby’s health. There is ample evidence documenting the deep fears experienced by pregnant and postpartum women in most countries as a result of the emergence of this novel virus ,24,51.A study comparing pregnant and postpartum women living on various continents found that North Americans and Latin Americans (including Mexicans) were more likely to have increased levels of worry . In the Women were responsible for implementing COVID-19 prevention measures and caring for infected partners, babies, and other family members, risking their own health. When isolation removed their support systems, such as family members and friends, they lacked help with household chores even after their babies had been born. What little help they received with household chores and caring for the baby was from a partner “who did what he could when he returned from work”, at a time when partners were “being subjected to excessive work and inflexible working hours” . Many woWomen’s traditional role of prioritizing the needs of others over their own  appears Social isolation meant that women were denied affection from their loved ones, including their mothers, and they also feared for the psychosocial development of their infants, who were deprived of contact with other people. They assumed that this lack of socialization could be harmful in the long term to their babies’ mental health, as has been observed in other studies ,55. NeveAs in most countries , prenataWorking women who were required to return to the workplace were extremely worried about getting COVID-19, even if they followed all the recommended self-care measures. They also experienced great distress about the lack of clarity regarding maternity leave. There were no special considerations for pregnant and postpartum women in the granting of maternity leave, which raised doubts about the adequacy of the measures to protect working women’s health and mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic.Four women in the CFG were clinically diagnosed by their mental health providers, and two others presented with clinical mental disorder symptoms during this period. Participating in the group gave them the opportunity to be heard and receive support from the facilitator and the other participants, which may have delayed the progress of their disorder. There is evidence that being part of a face-to-face group gives perinatal women a sense of belonging and of not being the only ones experiencing emotional symptoms . RealiziOne important consideration in this context is the role of the women’s faith and religious convictions as a mechanism for coping with their fears, illness, anxiety, and uncertainties. This is consistent with the observation that Mexican culture has a strong religious tradition. Some studies claim that strengthening spiritual behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic produced dramatic changes in people’s lives .Regarding the role of the CFG in providing social support and information, the data show that it was effective in terms of time, costs, and immediate response to perinatal women during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some elements that contributed to the positive result were the facilitator’s solid background and experience in perinatal mental health, and her monitoring of the group to ensure adherence to the guidelines, such as showing respect and avoiding lecturing others, as well as modeling an empathetic, respectful, and caring attitude. The women’s response in making the group their own, eagerly exchanging suggestions, and showing empathy and understanding toward the problems of others also underlined the important ways in which a CFG helped support perinatal women. Subjects’ many expressions of gratitude confirm that they felt understood and accompanied. This type of response has been observed by women in other Facebook groups. In one, for example, a woman remarked: “[It´s] just been great to have support from the other mums all going through the same thing…”; . In shorIn a broader context, the COVID-19 pandemic produced a host of negative consequences, but at the same time showed the potential of providing mental health care services, supplementing face-to-face support with the use of new technologies. The closure of mental health care services affected the delivery of emotional support and treatment to perinatal women, which was deficient even before the pandemic . This meThis qualitative descriptive study showed that Facebook was an efficient means of providing social support and information in the context of the pandemic to perinatal women. It was considered effective due to the small number of resources required to set it up and to the easiness to socializing our Facebook among the target population due to the enormous acceptance Facebook has for seeking information and help. It was also considered effective due to the numerous spontaneous expressions of gratitude for receiving advice and information from the participants. Our findings also revealed what Mexican pregnant and postpartum women experienced during COVID-19. Their comments reflect the numerous stressful situations they faced due to the changes in perinatal care; the confinement measures to limit the expansion of infections; the fear of themselves, their babies, and their families becoming infected; and the uncertainty about maternity leave and having to return to work, among others.One of the strengths of the study is that it examines the experiences and concerns of expectant and postpartum mothers from their perspective, at the time when they occurred, reducing memory bias. At the same time, it reveals the potential of Facebook to provide support and information for perinatal women to reduce the perinatal mental health care gap. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first published study on Facebook in Mexico used with this population for this purpose.Limitations of this study include the fact that the data are drawn from a self-selected sample, composed mainly of women with medium to medium–low socioeconomic status, who have their basic needs covered, as well as access to social health security, and in some cases to private medicine. Our findings do not therefore represent the experiences nor the usefulness of digital devices for more disadvantaged women with limited access to the Internet and electronic devices, who lack more efficient health services, and were also more severely affected by the pandemic. This may explain why none of them reported domestic violence or difficulties with their partners, which was a common finding in Mexico during this period.Social networks such as Facebook clearly have the potential to serve as a source of social support to vulnerable populations. Social media tools that provide mental health services are here to stay. It remains for Mexican institutions responsible for the health and mental health of the population to incorporate them. There is also a need to develop specific protocols to reach groups that have fallen between the cracks.