Unfolding visual characteristics of social media communication: reflections of smart tourism destinations

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the visual social media (SM) (Instagram) communication and the visual characteristics of smart tourism destination (STD) communication from destination marketing/management organizations (DMOs) and user-generated content (UGC) perspectives, which refer to projected image and perceived image, respectively.

Design/methodology/approach

Three DMO official accounts of STDs (Helsinki, Gothenburg and Lyon) and corresponding official hashtags were selected for the sample and total 6,000 post data (1,000 × 6) were retrieved from Instagram. Visual communication content was examined with a netnographic design over a proposed four-level visual content framework using corresponding methodological approaches (thematic analysis, visual analysis, object detection and text mining) for each level.

Findings

Among the eight emerging themes dominating the images, communication of smart elements conveys far less than expected textual and visual signals from DMOs despite their smart status, and in turn, from UGC as well. UGC revealed three extra image themes regardless of smartness perception. DMOs tend to project and give voice to their standard metropolitan areas and neighborhoods while UGCs focus on food-related and emotional elements. The findings show a partial overlap between DMOs and UGCs, revealing discrepancies in objects contained in visuals, hashtags and emojis. Additionally, as a rare attempt, the proposed framework for visual content analysis showed the importance of integrated methods to investigate visual content effectively.

Research limitations/implications

The number of attributes in visual analysis and focusing on the observed elements in text content (text, hashtags and emojis) are the limitations of the study in terms of methodology.

Originality/value

Apart from the multiple integrated methods used over a netnographic design, this study differs from existing SM and smart destinations intersection literature by attempting to fill a gap in focusing on and exploring visual SM communication, which is scarce in tourism context, for the contents generated by DMOs and users.

研究目的

本研究旨在探讨从目的地营销管理组织（DMO）和用户生成的内容（UGC）获取的视觉社交网站传播（instagram）以及智慧旅游目的地的视觉特征。这两个角度在本文中分别命名为投射形象和感知形象。

研究设计/方法/途径

本文收集了三个智慧旅游目的地（赫尔辛基、哥德堡、里昂）的DMO官方账号及其对应的官方标签数据, 其中从Instagram获取了一共6000个帖子（1000 x 6）。视觉传播内容是通过网络民族志设计进行分析的, 该设计采用四层视觉内容框架, 每一层使用相应的方法, 包括主题分析、视觉分析、目标检测、文本挖掘。

研究发现

在8个新兴的主导形象中, 智慧元素, 尽管是智能的, 但其传达的信息远不如预期的来自DMO的文本和视觉信号, 同样, 也不如来自UGC的信息。无论智慧感知程度如何, UGC显示了3个额外的形象。DMO倾向于展现和表达目的地标准的大都会地区及其临近社区, 而UGC专注于与食物相关的和情感的元素。我们的研究显示了DMO和UGC内容的部分重叠, 但揭示了两者在图像、标签和表情符号中包含对象的差异。此外, 作为一个少有的尝试, 我们提出的视觉内容分析框架展示了集成方法对有效研究视觉内容的重要性。

研究局限性、启示

从方法上来说, 视觉分析中属性的数量和在文本语境中对观察元素的关注是本研究的局限性

研究原创性/价值

除了在网络民族志设计中使用多个集成方法,本文和以往社交媒体和智慧目的地交互文献的区别还体现在关注和探索DMO和UGC生成内容的视觉社交媒体沟通, 这类研究旅游研究情境下是少见的。

Citation

Adamış, E. and Pınarbaşı, F. (2022), "Unfolding visual characteristics of social media communication: reflections of smart tourism destinations", Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 34-61. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTT-09-2020-0246