Symbolic Convergence and Tourism Social Media
Tourism Social Media: Transformations in Identity, Community and Culture
ISBN: 978-1-78190-213-4, eISBN: 978-1-78190-262-2
Publication date: 9 July 2013
Abstract
The majority of scholarly contributions in tourism social media have focused on assisting practitioners to optimize online platforms or to describe the digital behavior of prospective individual tourists. These studies are dominated by mechanistic ontological frameworks, which take little notice of the inherently social nature of tourism consumption. Acknowledging the sociality of Web 2.0 communications, this chapter explores the potentials of an alternative analytical framework informed by symbolic convergence theory. The linkages between tourism social media, virtual communities, and symbolic convergence processes are illustrated by examples of postings taking place on the Facebook fan site of Roskilde festival. These examples highlight the significance of symbolic communities in shaping the visitor experience against the backdrop of contemporary consumer culture.
Keywords
Citation
Gyimóthy, S. (2013), "Symbolic Convergence and Tourism Social Media", Tourism Social Media: Transformations in Identity, Community and Culture (Tourism Social Science Series, Vol. 18), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 55-71. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1571-5043(2013)0000018006
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited