IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v11y2021i3p106-d627218.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Slumming on Social Media? E-Mediated Tourist Gaze and Social Representations of Indian, South African, and Brazilian Slum Tourism Destinations

Author

Listed:
  • Mauro Sarrica

    (Department of Communication and Social Research, Sapienza, University of Rome, 00198 Rome, Italy)

  • Isabella Rega

    (Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University, Poole BH12 5BB, UK)

  • Alessandro Inversini

    (Ecole Hotelier de Lausanne, HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, 1000 Lausanne, Switzerland)

  • Laura Soledad Norton

    (Department of Communication and Social Research, Sapienza, University of Rome, 00198 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

Slum tourism is a hotly debated genre of travel. While it may foster intercultural encounters with marginalised “others”, it is also accused of reinforcing stereotypes and exploitation. Both aspects are amplified by the communication through social media of the slum tourism experience, that contribute to challenge or confirm stigmatizing representations of slums and their inhabitants. Based on the theoretical constructs of the tourist gaze and of social representations, this article addresses this particular type of digital contact. A lexicometric approach was used to analyse an extensive corpus of reviews on TripAdvisor ( N = 8126). The findings not only confirm common themes already identified by the literature: the eye-opening component of touring poverty and the gatekeeping function of guides; but also show the emergence of context-dependent specificities, such as a hedonistic feature in the Cape Town region; or the integration of favelas within the representations of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Furthermore, the results show the tension between the “othering” and the “sameing” mechanisms, making this tourism practice a space in which shallow and deep tourist gazes interact and co-exist, and are crucially mediated by the gatekeeper of the tours: the guide.

Suggested Citation

  • Mauro Sarrica & Isabella Rega & Alessandro Inversini & Laura Soledad Norton, 2021. "Slumming on Social Media? E-Mediated Tourist Gaze and Social Representations of Indian, South African, and Brazilian Slum Tourism Destinations," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-17, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:11:y:2021:i:3:p:106-:d:627218
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/11/3/106/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/11/3/106/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alessandro Inversini & Isabella Rega & Isabella Nunes Pereira & Roberto Bartholo, 2015. "The Rise of eTourism for Development," Springer Books, in: Iis Tussyadiah & Alessandro Inversini (ed.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2015, edition 127, pages 419-431, Springer.
    2. Nsizwazikhona Simon Chili, 2015. "Township Tourism: The politics and socio-economic dynamics of tourism in the South African township: Umlazi, Durban," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 7(4), pages 14-21.
    3. Farsari, Ioanna, 2018. "A structural approach to social representations of destination collaboration in Idre, Sweden," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 1-12.
    4. Monterrubio, Carlos, 2019. "Hosts and guests’ social representations of nudism: A mutual gaze approach," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 18-28.
    5. Wassler, Philipp & Nguyen, Thi Hong Hai & Mai, Le Quyen & Schuckert, Markus, 2019. "Social representations and resident attitudes: A multiple-mixed-method approach," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Dinhopl, Anja & Gretzel, Ulrike, 2016. "Selfie-taking as touristic looking," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 126-139.
    7. Lo, Iris Sheungting & McKercher, Bob, 2015. "Ideal image in process: Online tourist photography and impression management," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 104-116.
    8. Xiang, Zheng & Gretzel, Ulrike, 2010. "Role of social media in online travel information search," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 179-188.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ronnie Donaldson & Tina Odinakachi Iirmdu & Musfiqah Majiet & Pauline Van der Spuy, 2023. "Residents and Stakeholder Opinions on Township Tourism in Langa, Cape Town, South Africa," Geographies, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-15, November.
    2. António Cardoso & Amândio da Silva & Manuel Sousa Pereira & Neeta Sinha & Jorge Figueiredo & Isabel Oliveira, 2022. "Attitudes towards Slum Tourism in Mumbai, India: Analysis of Positive and Negative Impacts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-18, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael James Walsh & Raechel Johns & Naomi F. Dale, 2019. "The social media tourist gaze: social media photography and its disruption at the zoo," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 391-412, September.
    2. Tribe, John & Mkono, Muchazondida, 2017. "Not such smart tourism? The concept of e-lienation," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 105-115.
    3. Vujičić, Miroslav D. & Kennell, James & Stankov, Uglješa & Gretzel, Ulrike & Vasiljević, Đorđije A. & Morrison, Alastair M., 2022. "Keeping up with the drones! Techno-social dimensions of tourist drone videography," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    4. Höckert, Emily & Lüthje, Monika & Ilola, Heli & Stewart, Erika, 2018. "Gazes and faces in tourist photography," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 131-140.
    5. Zajadacz Alina & Minkwitz Aleksandra, 2020. "Using Social Media Data to Plan for Tourism," Quaestiones Geographicae, Sciendo, vol. 39(3), pages 125-138, September.
    6. Qiu, Shangzhi (Charles) & Cai, Liping & Lehto, Xinran & Huang, Zhuowei (Joy) & Gordon, Susan & Gartner, William, 2019. "Reliving self-presentational concerns in rural tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 56-67.
    7. Hajli, Nick & Wang, Yichuan & Tajvidi, Mina, 2018. "Travel envy on social networking sites," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 184-189.
    8. Lyu, Seong Ok, 2016. "Travel selfies on social media as objectified self-presentation," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 185-195.
    9. Boley, B. Bynum & Jordan, Evan J. & Kline, Carol & Knollenberg, Whitney, 2018. "Social return and intent to travel," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 119-128.
    10. Chen, Feier & Liu, Stephanie Q. & Mattila, Anna S., 2020. "Bragging and humblebragging in online reviews," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    11. Ulrika Persson-Fischer & Shuangqi Liu, 2021. "What Is Interdisciplinarity in the Study of Sustainable Destination Development?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-28, March.
    12. Patricia P. Iglesias-Sánchez & Marisol B. Correia & Carmen Jambrino-Maldonado & Carlos de las Heras-Pedrosa, 2020. "Instagram as a Co-Creation Space for Tourist Destination Image-Building: Algarve and Costa del Sol Case Studies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-26, April.
    13. Mahan, Joseph E. & Seo, Won Jae & Jordan, Jeremy S. & Funk, Daniel, 2015. "Exploring the impact of social networking sites on running involvement, running behavior, and social life satisfaction," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 182-192.
    14. Tao Liu & Ying Zhang & Huan Zhang & Xiping Yang, 2021. "A Methodological Workflow for Deriving the Association of Tourist Destinations Based on Online Travel Reviews: A Case Study of Yunnan Province, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-15, April.
    15. Ahmed Ibrahim Alzahrani & T. Ramayah & Nalini Suppiah & Osama Alfarraj & Nasser Alalwan, 2020. "Modeling Blog Usage From a Developing Country Perspective Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(3), pages 21582440209, July.
    16. Sharma, Mahak & Antony, Rose & Sehrawat, Rajat & Cruz, Angel Contreras & Daim, Tugrul U., 2022. "Exploring post-adoption behaviors of e-service users: Evidence from the hospitality sector /online travel services," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    17. Philipp Wassler & Giacomo Del Chiappa & Thi Hong Hai Nguyen & Giancarlo Fedeli & Nigel L. Williams, 2022. "Increasing vaccination intention in pandemic times: a social marketing perspective," Italian Journal of Marketing, Springer, vol. 2022(1), pages 37-58, March.
    18. Yanlong Guo & Jiaying Yu & Han Zhang & Zuoqing Jiang, 2022. "A Study on Cultural Context Perception in Huizhou Cultural and Ecological Reserve Based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-20, December.
    19. Krakover, Shaul & Corsale, Andrea, 2021. "Sieving tourism destinations: Decision-making processes and destination choice implications," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 33-43.
    20. Qu, Hailin & Lee, Haeyoung, 2011. "Travelers’ social identification and membership behaviors in online travel community," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1262-1270.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:11:y:2021:i:3:p:106-:d:627218. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.