Tourist Activities in Multimodal Texts

An Analysis of Croatian and Scottish Tourism Websites

M. Nekic

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781137397904
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137397911
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Hostelería, viajes y turismo

The book is devoted to the analysis of promotional material of tourist activities on tourism websites, including walking, dining, and visiting natural and cultural heritage sights, as instances of multimodal texts through a case study of Croatian and Scottish tourism websites.

1

Introduction

1.1 Why tourism websites?

Culture has been identified as an academic buzzword (Schmidt, 2004, p. VII in Cha & Schmidt, 2004). Critical ink has been spilled over the question of whether tourism is a subject worthy of academic study (Page & Connell, 2006, p. 6; Sharpley, 2011, p. 6). The newness of the new media has been challenged (O’Neill, 2008, p. 16). Advertising has been categorised as an area where much debate has already taken place (Bendel & Held, 2008, p. 6 in Held & Bendel, 2008). In various research traditions, multiple meanings have been assigned to the concept of text (Adamzik, 2004, pp. 38 ff.).

In the face of these descriptions and evaluations, have the signifiers of culture, tourism, the new media, advertising, and text become short-lived, over-researched, and derogatory signs? In fact, as this book will demonstrate, there is space for a response in the negative. Contradictory though it may sound, it is precisely the popularity of culture in academic and popular discourses which points to the need for it to be systematically studied.

The study of tourism websites is important for several reasons. Firstly, it is highly socially relevant since research reveals that tourism is of huge economic importance. Thus, according to a report on EU tourism policy (Verheugen, 2005, p. 2), the tourist sector has been identified as a significant contributor to the EU economy (ibid.). The inclusion of Croatia within the European Union makes the country, referred to as one of the important tourist destinations in the Mediterranean (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Croatia, 2006), a potentially significant contributor to the European tourist industry. Also, evidence that increasing financial means have been spent by the Croatian National Tourist Board (HTZ) on advertising Croatia as a tourist destination on global television networks such as CNN and Eurosport (Ministry of Tourism of the Republic of Croatia, 2010), suggests that the importance of Croatia as a tourist destination is also communicated through the global media. Similarly, tourism is one of Scotland’s largest employment generating industries (The Scottish Government, 2011). The use of the Internet and television exposure also provides important avenues for attracting potential visitors to Scotland. The wealth of views registered for the homepage of the new UK and Ireland marketing campaign Surprise Yourself and the new television advert accompanying the Surprise Yourself campaign may serve as examples (Scotland’s national tourism organization, 2011).

Secondly, the study of tourism is of huge importance for political reasons. More specifically, when it comes to intercultural communication and multilingualism, it has been seen as desirable to involve several languages and cultures in the idea of multilingualism and multiculturalism in Europe (Trim, 2002, pp. 12 f. in Tosi, 2002). Achieving this is attempted through the inclusion of cultures and languages, such as Croatian, which have only recently been represented in crucial political institutions, such as the European Union (European Parliament, 2014), and are under-represented in analyses of advertising on the Internet. The analysis of banner advertising on the Internet in German and Croatian may serve as an example (Filipan-Zignić, 2007).

Thirdly, while discussions of tourism among anthropologists reveal concerns related to the possible destruction of cultural diversity in local communities through tourism and travel (Salazar, 2012, p. 19), the study of tourism has been characterised as fundamental to grasping human interaction in multilingual and multicultural tourist language-learning settings (Phipps, 2007, pp. 19 ff.; Nekić 2009, review on Phipps, 2007). More specifically, as a site for issues of identity, it has the potential to encourage levels of self-reflexivity which enable the self to become aware of and question its established practices and routines in relation to the other in a dialogical way (Jack & Phipps, 2005, pp. 157, 161). In addition, there have been calls for the analysis of multimodal texts and meaning-making in teaching and learning contexts (Whittaker et al., 2007, pp. 2 ff. in McCabe et al., 2007; Jewitt, 2008, pp. 241–267); and their potential for the enhancement of students’ writing and literacy achievement has been stressed (Hallet, 2008a, p. 8; Hallet, 2008b, pp. 167–183 in Müller-Hartmann & Schocker-von Ditfurth). For didactic purposes, tourism web pages may further be employed in the teaching and learning of foreign languages and cultures to promote reflection and critical thinking among students and raise their awareness of schematized representations of cultures.

In addition, while it is the case that, as part of multimedia convergence, knowledge has been assimilated from previous media forms, in that previous media forms have been integrated into newly convergent interactive media forms such as the layout from print material and the moving image from film (O’Neill, 2008, pp. 16, 20 f., 92 f.), it is equally the case that web pages as forms of new media cover obligatory and optional characteristics: the hypertextual organization in the World Wide Web platform accessible via the Internet, the multimodal coding, the dynamic nature, the interactivity potential and the support of computer-mediated communication (Storrer, 2008, pp. 211–227 in Janich, 2008). Besides, except for the study of identity construction on tourism websites, as conducted by Hallett & Kaplan-Weinger (2010), most studies on tourism and discourse, text, or language (Dann, 1996; Baider et al. 2004; Jaworski & Pritchard 2005; Antelmi et al. 2007; Held & Bendel 2008) have been concerned with an analysis of print material, rather than the new media. This lends merit to giving space to the analysis of the new media, in addition to print material. Also, research on destination marketing and communication reveals that, despite evidence that marketing budgets in many tourist destinations are spent on more conventional, print-based media, including brochures and leaflets (Dore & Crouch, 2003 in Fyall, 2010, p. 14; Foley & Fahy, 2004 in Fyall, 2010, p. 14), a new tendency towards using more electronic and web-based forms of communication has been identified (Fyall, 2010, p. 14 in Wang & Pizam, 2010).

Furthermore, although a wealth of research has been conducted in the area of advertising (Bendel & Held, 2008, p. 6 in Held & Bendel, 2008), a dearth of research has been noted when it comes to combining tourism studies with the study of language or discourse, in general (Pritchard & Jaworski, 2005, p. 1 in Jaworski & Pritchard, 2005), and systematic analyses of promotional tourist discourse, in particular (Held, 2008, p. 149 in Held & Bendel, 2008). Thus, the project is relevant to the areas of commerce and advertisements. In this context, a plea has been made for dealing with three subjects of investigation: first, the quality assessment of texts and suggestions for improvement, such as through website usability; second, the identification of latent textual meanings through use of psychological and sociological methods; third, the identification and critical assessment of social concepts and ideals constructed by promotional texts (Bendel, 2008, pp. 237 f. in Held & Bendel, 2008). When it comes to qualitative interpretation of latent meanings, a note of caution needs to be sounded. Textual analyses of promotional texts or discourse have been criticised for intuitive interpretations (Bendel, 2008, p. 234 in Held & Bendel, 2008). In application to this work, this is a methodological challenge which, rather than exclusively relating to websites, concerns empirical analyses of texts, in general. As it is known that qualitative interpretation of data is essential to hermeneutic activities (ibid.), this work seeks to offer plausible interpretations based on what has been defined as the strength of linguistic work, that is, the presence of a tool-kit suitable for in-depth analyses of meanings (Bendel & Held, 2008, p. 4 in Held & Bendel, 2008). This work is therefore intended to point to meaning potentials on the basis of an exemplary study of tourism websites, without making claims to cover all possible meanings and to be complete.

Moreover, the book is of potential practical application. When it comes to business studies, knowledge about what is represented on tourism websites, what is communicated to users as cultural tourists, and how users are involved in the creation of tourist meanings may allow business people to become more aware of the functioning of tourist promotional material. More precisely, it will enable them to master the range of resources used as strategies to design websites in ways which more specifically target types of users.

As a final point, the importance of the book to the progress of multimodal research needs to be pointed out. Within the area of multimodal research, the findings are expected to contribute to the understanding of the ways in which tourism websites function as examples of multimodal texts. In this context, despite the realization that language is merely one of several semiotic modes involved in the construction of meaning (Matthiessen, 2009, p. 14 in Halliday & Webster, 2009), it is only recently that studies have begun to apply multimodal text approaches to the empirical analysis of texts. This has included multimodal discourse analysis taken from a more systemic-functional perspective, the social semiotic theory of multimodality, the theory of multimodal actions (Bucher, 2010, pp. 46–64), and multimodal interaction analysis (Jewitt, 2009b, pp. 28–39 in Jewitt, 2009c).

Thus, following multimodal discourse analysis, meaning is construed through the interplay between semiotic resources themselves (Bucher, 2010, p. 52 in Bucher et al., 2010), with the interests of the sign-maker, as the person who makes meanings, being of less importance (Jewitt, 2009b, p. 36 in Jewitt, 2009c).

The social semiotic theory of multimodality views the construal of meaning as resulting from the ways in which sign-makers attribute meanings through use of semiotic resources for certain purposes. Multimodality is thus viewed as a dynamic and motivated social process which is closely tied to the socio-cultural context of use (Jewitt, 2009b, p. 30 in Jewitt, 2009c). The foundations of both multimodal discourse analysis and the social semiotic theory of multimodality were set by the theories of systemic functional linguistics and social semiotics, as advanced by Halliday (1978, 1985). Historically, social semiotics has been influenced by researchers in the area of interactional sociology. For instance, Foucault’s (1980, p. 119) notion of ‘power’ which creates knowledge and discourse has been used as a means for elaborating explorations of the interdependence of language and social and political issues through an exemplary analysis of the function of language in a state of war (Hodge & Kress, 1993, pp. 153 f.). Bernstein’s (1972, 1975) investigations of language and power relations across social classes have been used to explore the link between utterances, classifications or ‘judgments about qualities of intelligence, character, etc.’ (Hodge & Kress, 1993, p. 66) and class expectations (ibid.).

In multimodal interaction analysis, meanings of identity are created through the interaction between social actors through the use of semiotic resources. There is a focus on the situated nature of interaction in the socio-cultural context; that is, social interaction is bound to a given point in time with certain social actors (Jewitt, 2009b, p. 33 in Jewitt, 2009c). Multimodal interaction analysis has been influenced by interactional sociolinguistics, mediated discourse, and multimodality. For example, approaches to the function of communication in the construction of power and social identity (Gumperz & Cook-Gumperz, 1982, p. 1 in Gumperz, 1982) and the sociological notion of (inter)action as performance (Goffman, 1959, p. 17), rather than signs which ‘constantly change as they circulate in different contexts for different groups with different histories’ (Hodge & Kress, 1993, p. xii), were crucial to the development of multimodal interactional analysis. In particular, the works of Norris (2004, 2009, 2011) and Norris & Jones (2005) have been devoted to the analysis of the ways in which meaning is made through the interaction of modes, such as gaze and body movement, in people’s everyday interactions and contemporary communication technologies such as the Internet, software, CD-ROM, and video from a discourse analytical perspective.

According to the theory of multimodal action, meaning is construed through the communicative context of use of semiotic resources and the state of knowledge of the communication partners, rather than the semiotic resources themselves (Bucher, 2010, pp. 52, 54 in Bucher et al., 2010). Thus, the communicative use of language by Searle (1969), Heringer (1974), Fritz (1982), and Gloning (1996) and of images by Muckenhaupt (1986), Scholz (2004), and Stöckl (2004) can be related to Austin (1962), who set the foundations for a theory of multimodal action (Bucher, 2010, p. 59 in Bucher et al., 2010). In particular, the theory is informed by Austin’s (1962, pp. 6 f.) notion of speech acts, that is, the fact that speakers perform actions with utterances. Adopting a social semiotic perspective on tourism websites, this book is also expected to offer newly developed concepts, tools, and methodological approaches to the empirical analysis of data, which may be applicable to the analysis of websites with other social contexts of use than tourism.

The importance of the above-mentioned signifiers of culture, tourism, the new media, advertising, and text calls for their investigation. This will be realized through an analysis of tourist activities – such as visiting natural heritage sites, doing sports activities, experiencing history and heritage, and benefiting from gastronomy – in multimodal texts. It is intended to understand the ways in which contemporary multimodal texts such as complex cultural communicative acts may function in a specific communicative situation – that is, tourism communication online – through an in-depth, exemplary analysis of regional Croatian and Scottish tourism web pages. In order to give an impression of the kind of websites which will be explored, screenshots of the homepages of the Zadar, Orkney, Istria and Perthshire region websites are shown in Figures 1.1–1.4.

A first glance at the homepages of the four regional websites reveals that they differ in terms of layout. When it comes to layout elements, many more elements can be noted on the Zadar region homepage (covering a wealth of text fragments, text passages, menu items, boxes, separators, icons, and photographs) and the Istria region homepage (involving a wealth of text fragments, menu items, drawings, maps, icons, menu areas, and boxes) than on the Orkney region homepage (including text fragments, photographs, icons, boxes, and menu areas) and the Perthshire region homepage (predominantly embracing text fragments, text passages, menu areas, and icons). Also, some elements are made more prominent than others, as indicated by textual cues related to salience and framing. Examples on the Zadar region website include a visually and spatially prominent landscape photograph, repetitive representation of landscape environments in smaller static photographs, lexical references to seascapes and landscapes in groups and clauses, the large size and prominent placement in the upper part of the page of a wealth of sports activities photographs, and the repetitive representation of activities and wellness in interplays between smaller static photographs. Instances on the Orkney homepage relate to a visually and spatially prominent landscape photograph, the repetitive representation of landscape environments in smaller static photographs, lexical references to white winter in groups and phrases, and the placement of a wealth of types of media in separate layout units. Examples on the Istria homepage revolve around the large size and prominent placement in the upper part of the page of landscape photographs, the prominent placement of a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 A Multi-Layer Approach to the Website Analysis
• 3 Analysis of Website Layout
• 4 Analysis of Meaning-Making in Tourism Websites 78
• 5 Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index