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Communicating Disaster Spaces of the In-Between: Tourists’ use of social media during Cyclone Winston, Fiji
Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (starting 2013), Department of Geography, Media and Communication (from 2013). (Geomedia research group)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1918-6701
2017 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

During the last few years, several tourism destinations have faced different natural disasters, including cyclones, tsunamis and earthquakes. The transforming media landscape, including the use of social media, brings new possibilities and challenges of preparing and handling disasters. In tourism studies, few studies have explored the use of social media in disaster situations. This paper puts focus on the tourists’ roles and participation in disasters and crisis communication, based on a case study from Fiji, following tropical cyclone Winston in February 2016. The study explores the spatial and virtual dimensions of how disasters are handled, communicated and (de)constructed by tourists through social media as “spaces of the in-between”. In this context, tourists become not merely ‘victims’ by disaster events, but also powerful mediators in how the tourism destination is reshaped during a disaster, reflecting complex geographies of (im)mobility, (dis)connectedness, (un)control and inequalities. Thus, crucial questions include for what/whose purpose tourists use social media and if social media provides an arena for self-reflexivity among tourists about their own roles and impact as (potential) visitors to the disaster area in relation to other actors, including the local community. The paper has a qualitative netnographic approach, which involves studying social and cultural dimensions of online activities and how they relate and intersect with people’s everyday life. The netnographic fieldwork includes analysis of social media content (Tripadvisor and Facebook), interviews with Australian tourists who visited Fiji during and after the cyclone, as well as with hotels, resorts and tourism organisations in Fiji.   

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2017.
National Category
Human Geography Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified
Research subject
Turismvetenskap; Human Geography
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-68768OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-68768DiVA, id: diva2:1239177
Conference
Geomedia 2017 International Conference: Spaces of the In-Between. Karlstad, 9-12 maj.
Available from: 2018-08-15 Created: 2018-08-15 Last updated: 2018-08-16Bibliographically approved

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Geomedia 2017

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Möller, Cecilia

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • apa.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf