​Special Issue of Tourism Geographies

Deadline: October 15, 2021

This special issue examines practices, meanings and impacts of emerging media technologies: digital, mobile, geo/locative and augmented reality technologies within tourism geographies. The special issue aims to situate emerging media technologies within processes of the production and transformation of space, spatial knowledge and social relations within the tourist encounter. We ask contributors to the special issue to consider: What are the configurations of different technologies involved with tourist experiences? In what ways do emerging media technologies shape tourism imaginaries and experiences? What are the particular cultural inflections in the relationship between digital and tourist practices? How do broader infrastructural and economic conditions shape the relationships between digital and tourist practices?

Papers in this special issue will explore the unfolding contexts of media, digital and emerging technologies in tourism geographies across breadth and depth and may include the following topics:

• Culturally and geographically situated explorations of digital practices in tourist sites (including empirical investigations into travel photography, virtual reality headsets, online travel writing, and travel vlogs)
• The role of emerging media technologies for wayfinding and placemaking
• Digital practices and infrastructures in relationship to tourism work and livelihoods
• Specific studies of social and digital media platforms and apps and tourist practices (eg. Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp)
• Specific studies of geo/locative and augmented reality technologies and tourist practices (eg. GoPro, WallaMe)
• Non-use and non-digital environments such as sacred and religious sites
• In-depth qualitative or ethnographic studies of emerging media technologies in literary tourism, film tourism, theme parks, fan tourism, music tourism, food tourism, heritage tourism, or roots tourism in comparative contexts (we particularly welcome studies situated in countries in the Global South)
• Tourism locations and technologies and of visual cultures

Guest Editors:

Jolynna Sinanan, University of Manchester

Christian Ritter, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Contact email: emergingmediatourism@gmail.com

Abstract submission: 15 Oct 2021

Full publication timeline: https://www.tgjournal.com/emerging-media-technologies.html

We are looking forward to receiving your contributions.