Travel Journalism and Travel Media

Identities, Places and Imaginings

Ben Cocking

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781137599070
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137599087
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book charts the trajectory of travel journalism from its print based origins to the emergence of hybridised multi-platform content. It considers how this has led to not only different kinds of travel journalism but different kinds of travel journalists; the professional travel journalist is now challenged online by user generated content. Cocking focuses on the conventions and "news values" of British print-based travel journalism, examining the genre's liminal position between truth and fiction. In the context of the expansion of global tourism, Cocking explores how travel journalism from different parts of the world negotiates cultural differences in its depictions of destinations, regions, and tourist practices. Consideration is also given to the political potential of travel journalism and its capacity for awareness raising. Based on original research including qualitative analysis of print-based articles and blogs this book offers an innovative and original contribution to this emerging field of study.

© The Author(s) 2020

B. CockingTravel Journalism and Travel Mediahttps://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59908-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Travel Journalism—Forms and Origins

Ben Cocking¹

(1)

Centre for Journalism, University of Kent, Kent, UK

Ben Cocking

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introduction

Travel journalism—like all areas of journalism—is experiencing a continued period of great change and transition. The economic model of print journalism is increasingly unsustainable in the context of freely accessible, and often user generated, online content. Advertising revenue, that for so long brought financial security to print journalism, is now being reassigned to a rapidly changing online media environment. Similarly, tourism companies are seeing the potential in advertising and sponsoring online spaces like travel blogs and vlogs to generate custom more quickly and often for significantly less outlay than their more traditional means of engaging public relations companies to produce marketing content and inviting journalists on free trips. Allied to this social media platforms enable the production of user generated content. As a result travel journalism is in a state transition. Social media platforms provide seemingly limitless possibilities in terms of how content can be packaged. The presentational environment of, for example, blogging platforms opens up huge possibilities—particularly visually—for what has traditionally been a primarily textual form of journalism. The possibilities afforded by the technology of social media platforms has seen the emergence of hybridized forms of travel journalism. The aim of this book is to seek to explore how this context of transition is changing the representational characteristics and practices of the genre. That is, how travel journalism represents the world and how technological development and the emergence of new ways of monetizing content are shaping the representational practices and potential of this form of journalism. The following chapters address these issues in several different, though often interconnected ways. In Chap. 2, the constitutive, representational elements of travel journalism are examined. Specifically, this chapter draws on the concept of ‘news values’ (Galtung and Ruge, 1965) in order to assess the ‘values’ of travel journalism. That is, the ideologically driven representational values that shape and constitute travel content. It focuses on British tabloid travel journalism, drawing comparison with more traditional, broadsheet based forms of travel journalism. In so doing, it considers the ways in which readers are, to borrow Althusser’s term, ‘interpellated’ ideologically by content; how readerships are encouraged to participate in different forms of consumption. Chapter 3 focuses on travel journalism’s transition from print to online. It examines compares the representational practices of travel blogs with that of traditional broadsheet newspapers and in so doing explores the different business models of each format. In particular Chap. 3 examines the representational drivers of narrative in print and blog settings along with the different ways in which such narratives engage readers. Chapters 4 and 5 examine the ways in which particular destinations are represented in travel journalism from different regions of the world. Chapter 4 looks ‘West’, focusing on how Malaysian travel journalism represents holiday experiences in both Malaysian tourist destinations along with famous and well established ‘Western’ destinations. In so doing it considers the points of similarity and divergence between these modes of representation and those well established in Western travel journalism. This perspective is balanced by Chap. 5 and its focus on representations of the Middle East in British and American newspaper travel journalism and on the online review site, TripAdvisor. This chapter seeks to trace circuits of representation from their origins in nineteenth century British travel journalism, through travel journalism to user generated content on TripAdvisor. Chapter 6 examines the political possibilities of travel journalism and its potential to respond to the mainstream news agenda. By way of an example this chapter focuses the coverage of US President Trump’s initiative to resize and repurpose ‘national monuments’ in American newspapers. It compares the coverage given to the story in all sections of each paper with that given in the travel sections. In so doing, it examines the ways in which travel journalism conveys political critique and environment concern, finding that it tends to do so through the interplay of established travel journalism representational practices with those associated with other forms of journalism, such as political reporting.

Some of aspects of the changes travel journalism is undergoing have been addressed in other studies. For example, Hanusch and Fürsich’s edited collection Travel Journalism: Exploring, Production, Impact and Culture (Hanusch, 2014) examines some of the representational aspects of travel journalism in studies of specific regions. For example, it includes a chapter by me on representations of Africa in British broadsheet travel journalism. It also includes a chapter on travel blogging and aspects of the changing dimensions of the financial logic of travel journalism are also addressed in several different chapters. More recently, Bryan Pirolli produced a single authored monograph Travel Journalism: Informing Tourists in the Digital Age (2018). Taking a part academic, part practitioner based approach, it also addresses aspects of travel journalism’s transition from print to online environments. In so doing, it explores aspects of the changing representational practices of travel journalism—particularly in respect of how the production of content online calls upon journalists to utilize different skills and techniques, both in terms of the presentation and monetization of content. In this sense, the intention here is to focus on the changing nature of travel journalism’s representational output. That is, in contrast to Pirolli, to study the end product rather than the changing demands on the craft of journalism as it transitions online. Likewise, where—perhaps inevitably as the first book on travel journalism—Hanusch and Fürsich’s primary focus on taking stock of the state of play in an emerging academic field, this book seeks to examine specific representational attributes of travel journalism. These books are discussed in more detail later in this chapter as part of a review of existing literature on travel journalism.

Intervention in these lines of enquiry is significant and timely for several reasons. It has, for example, been widely acknowledged that the study of the media as a whole is very Western centric—this is particularly the case in the study of travel journalism. The focus in Chap. 5 on Malaysian travel journalism furthers knowledge and understanding in this area, particularly in terms of how established representational tropes are refigured in non-Western travel journalism. Similarly, Chap. 6 aims to further extend existing research in the ways in which modes of representation ‘flow’ between older, often colonial, travel writing and contemporary travel journalism by seeking to explore the extent to which such modes resurface in user generated content on review sites like TripAdvisor. The use of theories of ‘news values’ is very well established as a means of critiquing how and why stories are selected for the news. However, little consideration has been given to the application of this paradigm to other forms of journalism. Chapter 2 pursues this line of enquiry, seeking to explore the underlying ‘values’ of tabloid based travel journalism. Similarly, the comparative study in Chap. 3 of the representational practices of travel blogs and broadsheet travel journalism, aims further extend knowledge and understanding of how online environments are impacting on representational practices. Lyn McGaurr’s highly original study of travel journalism’s coverage of environmental conflict in Tasmania provides a unique insight into the political and cosmopolitan potential of the genre (2010). The focus in Chap. 6 on the coverage of the Trump administration’s resizing of lands with ‘national monument’ status in American travel journalism seeks to further advance research into its ability to intervene politically, to respond to the news agenda and convey awareness of environmental conflict.

Travel Journalism: An Image Problem

The media industry tends to perceive of travel journalism as a low status format. It is not considered ‘real’ journalism because, as indicated in the previous chapter, ‘it seems to defy several major values of journalism: objectivity, editorial independence and public relevance’ (Fürsich, 2002, p. 61). Within the profession travel journalism is often perceived as being rather ‘lightweight’, less prestigious and of little importance relative to the ‘fourth estate’ function of news and current affairs journalism. As travel journalist Chris Moss wrote in 2008, travel journalism is often viewed as a fun, amateurish adjunct to the ‘real’ business of journalism. Consequently

At best, this copy [travel journalism] often comes in with a few factual errors or sloppy observations. At worst, it is written up during a hangover on the flight home and culled from a guidebook. Because everyone had to do a “My holiday” essay at school, all journalists think they can knock off a quick travel feature without much trouble (Moss, 2008, p. 36)

Thus, in comparison to most other areas of journalism which require specific training and skills, ‘…many newspaper journalists who write travel pieces have generally not received any training in the field’ (Hanusch, 2009, p. 624). After all, travel is a leisure activity and the main aim of most professionally produced travel journalism is to encourage us to spend our money on travel and tourism activities. In this way, typically, travel journalism tends to directly address ‘readers, viewers or users as individuals who make consumer decisions’ (Fürsich, 2012, p. 13). Consequently, in broader, socio-cultural terms travel journalism is understood to be predominantly a market driven form of journalism (Hanitzsch, 2007, p. 374). The nature of the political economy of travel journalism, its close alliance with the tourism industry, its reliance on paid trips, is further problematized by the fact that travel journalism content is increasingly draw from public relations and marketing materials. The rise of new media forms online and the proliferation of user generated content have hit the economics of journalism, particularly print journalism, very hard. The budget for newspapers’ travel sections is no longer able to provide the resources for slow burn, long form pieces: ‘Classic travel features—meaning those containing narrative, colour, creativity, inquiry–are being replaced by reader tips, lists of suggestions and thinly disguised advertorial puffs and plugs for tour operators…’ (Moss, 2008, p. 37). A further consequence of declining budgets in that less and less travel journalists work ‘in house’—most now work on a freelance basis. The insecurity of freelance work means that nowadays out of necessity travel journalists often end up engaging in a much broader range of work activities than they have historically. Typically, in addition to producing travel articles, they might also contribute to travel guides, write hotel and restaurant reviews and produce marketing literature for tour operators (ibid, p. 33). This places contemporary travel journalists in an even more complicated and compromised position relative to the professional ethics and values of journalism than their historic counterparts. In particular, journalistic objectivity and the professional ‘capacity to narrativize the events in the real world’ would appear to be almost at odds with the workaday practices of travel journalists (Zelizer, 2004, p. 103). Certainly, at the very least, they are conceived of in very different ways to other areas of journalism. Indeed, on a pragmatic level, this is tempered by understanding the relationship between travel content and public relations copy as being on a ‘quid pro quo’, symbiotic, basis:

“We sell ourselves piece by piece. For a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Travel Journalism—Forms and Origins
• 2. Making Tabloid Travel Journalism: Values and Visuality
• 3. “Itravel: Competing Forms of Travel Writing in Print Based and User Generated Journalism”
• 4. Visions of Past and Present? Travel Journalism Features and TripAdvisor Reviews of Tourist Destinations in the Middle East
• 5. Looking West: Representations of Cultural Difference and Patterns of Consumption in ‘Eastern’ Travel Journalism
• 6. Selling it ‘Green’: Travel Journalism, Trump and the US National Monuments
• 7. Conclusions
• Back Matter