Spectacle Over Substance: The Digital Approach Of Dark Tourism

In nowadays digital era, sites of trauma, death, disasters and collective mourning are highly mediated through online platform designed for entertainment and visibility, all empowered by algorithms. The purpose of this paper is to have a closer and critical look on how dark heritage adjusts itself in contemporary tourism, where locations of historical tragedies are repacked into a visual spectacle, all consumed through social media. Algorithms of social media platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram, advantage the shocking values and the dark aesthetics over historical fact and empathy. These platforms favor a higher risk of trivializing trauma and disaster, the whole concept of dark tourism, because of how it’s presented in online space. The dark heritage tourism in the digital ages is increasingly subjected to the processes of commodification and cultural detachment, whereby memory becomes a visual thing circulated for affective impact, rather than for a historical reflection. A superficial engagement and the virality of short videos shared online are helping into shaping the behavior of the tourists visiting dark heritage sites. Lastly, this paper holds a critical assessment on how dark tourism is presented in social media and proposes few strategies for educating the tourist of dark heritage sites. In addition, the paper takes the discussion further by exploring the educational role of dark tourism and considering how the aestheticization of trauma shapes public memory. It also suggests ethical and sustainable ways to engage with dark heritage in digital spaces.