IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/infott/v21y2019i3d10.1007_s40558-019-00151-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The social media tourist gaze: social media photography and its disruption at the zoo

Author

Listed:
  • Michael James Walsh

    (University of Canberra)

  • Raechel Johns

    (University of Canberra)

  • Naomi F. Dale

    (University of Canberra)

Abstract

This article presents an account of the social media tourist gaze. It does this by reporting on a qualitative exploratory study that considers the use of photography and its dissemination on social media while participants stayed overnight at a zoological park. To examine the impact of photography and social media, our study separated participants into two groups: those we asked to refrain from posting on social media and those whom we placed no restrictions on while undertaking this overnight tourist experience. Results indicate that participants experienced heightened levels of connection with tourist activities and increased interactions between participants who were refraining from social media use. But participants also indicate some consternation and difficulty associated with social media abstention. Our contribution provides an understanding of the impact of the social media tourist gaze which suggests that photography has become a critical instrument for sharing experiences within tourism contexts. Tension appears ever present between a need to capture tourist experiences for digital dissemination on the one hand, and engage in the tourist activity itself, which suggest that tourist contexts and providers may need to explore better ways to manage both face-to-face and digital involvements that travellers increasingly feel compelled to perform.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:infott:v:21:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s40558-019-00151-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s40558-019-00151-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40558-019-00151-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40558-019-00151-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dinhopl, Anja & Gretzel, Ulrike, 2016. "Selfie-taking as touristic looking," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 126-139.
    2. 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.
    3. Lidija Lalicic & Christian Weismayer, 2016. "The passionate use of mobiles phones among tourists," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 153-173, June.
    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. 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).

    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. 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.
    2. 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).
    3. 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.
    4. Zajadacz Alina & Minkwitz Aleksandra, 2020. "Using Social Media Data to Plan for Tourism," Quaestiones Geographicae, Sciendo, vol. 39(3), pages 125-138, September.
    5. 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.
    6. Gong, Yaqi & Schroeder, Ashley & Plaisance, Patrick Lee, 2023. "Digital detox tourism: An Ellulian critique," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    7. 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.
    8. Georgios Giotis & Evangelia Papadionysiou, 2022. "The Role of Managerial and Technological Innovations in the Tourism Industry: A Review of the Empirical Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-20, April.
    9. 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.
    10. Zhang, Kun & Lin, Zhibin & Zhang, Jinyi, 2021. "Tourist gaze through computer vision: Differences between Asian, North American, and European tourists," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. Shiva Ilkhanizadeh & Mahmoud Golabi & Siamand Hesami & Husam Rjoub, 2020. "The Potential Use of Drones for Tourism in Crises: A Facility Location Analysis Perspective," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-13, October.
    12. Christou, Prokopis A., 2020. "Neoteny: The paedomorphosis of destinations," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    13. Giglio, Simona & Pantano, Eleonora & Bilotta, Eleonora & Melewar, T.C., 2020. "Branding luxury hotels: Evidence from the analysis of consumers’ “big” visual data on TripAdvisor," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 495-501.
    14. Tung, Vincent Wing Sun & McKercher, Bob, 2017. "Negotiating the rapidly changing research, publishing, and career landscape," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 322-331.
    15. Kashmala Latif & Muhammad Yousaf Malik & Abdul Hameed Pitafi & Shamsa Kanwal & Zara Latif, 2020. "If You Travel, I Travel: Testing a Model of When and How Travel-Related Content Exposure on Facebook Triggers the Intention to Visit a Tourist Destination," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, May.
    16. Pantano, Eleonora & Dennis, Charles, 2019. "Store buildings as tourist attractions: Mining retail meaning of store building pictures through a machine learning approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 304-310.
    17. Ilić, Damir & Milošević, Isidora & Ilić-Kosanović, Tatjana, 2022. "Application of Unmanned Aircraft Systems for smart city transformation: Case study Belgrade," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    18. Krzysztof Stepaniuk & Anna Sturgulewska, 2020. "Hitchhiking Experiences and Perception of Affective Label Polarity in Social Networking Sites—Potential Memetic Implications for Digital Visual Content Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    19. T. S. Stumpf & Christopher B. Califf & Joshua J. Frye, 2020. "Technological metaworlds in travel," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 273-296, June.
    20. Anja Dinhopl & Ulrike Gretzel, 2016. "Conceptualizing tourist videography," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 395-410, January.

    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:spr:infott:v:21:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s40558-019-00151-4. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.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.