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Socialisation: The influence of media on destination choice

Socialisation: The influence of media on destination choice
Author: Bianca Habron
1 Commentries
Have you ever considered the extent to the effect the television, news or Internet has on the choices you make? Is something safe or dangerous? Do I want to go there???

Socialisation as a topic consists of many components, a number of authors have tried to explain the meaning of socialisation. McPherson (1989) stated, "It is a complex developmental learning process that teaches the knowledge, values, and norms essential to participation in social life. It is through socialization that we learn all types of social roles, among these are roles related to sport and leisure participation". In other words socialisation is the process by which people learn to function in social situations, as mentioned by McPherson it is the "learning" and "teaching". It is considered that there are four elements, which affect this process; these include family, education, media and peers.

Media as a phenomenon as filtered into every part of people's daily lives, computers are used for work and entertainment, and some house can have televisions in more than one room. Voase (2002) contributes, that this ease of accessible information 'has led to a democratisation of knowledge' (2002, P 394) and in turn has enabled anyone one person to become an "expert".

The television allows its viewers to see different countries and places that they might have not known existed or even contemplated, from the comfort of their own home. However the flow of images cannot be considered the only aspect of the Television, which influences destination decisions. The power of news is at times greatly underestimated by the authors and viewers; an example of such estimation was by Lincoln Steffens and his friend and rival Jacob Riis, both men were journalists in New York, 1890. The journalists both reported the crimes within in the city, however for two different newspapers. The race between the two had started with a little information being given, about a few small crimes that had taken place to Steffen, this titbit of information carried forth the witch hunt for any information about the crimes of the city. These stories were read everyday by the cities residents and as Schudson (2003) points out

"It is likely that the sales were good for locks and guard dogs in New York during those weeks and that people walked more carefully down the street or returned to their homes earlier than usual." (P2).

An example of the news's influence could be connected to the January 2011 political unrest in Egypt, although the named demonstrations were taking place in Cairo, the BBC commented that "British tourists have been warned to get out of major Egyptian cities" (BBC, 2011). In link with this information it was noted that 83% of European arrivals had declined in February and 68% in March

Tourists gain vast amounts of information about destinations through destination tourist's board's websites, for example Visit England that gives tourists information regarding the country as well as tips, which can help them during their journey. The aspect of tips and information is one that is closely linked to Online travel communities, these communities allow travellers to upload images of their travels, experiences and views on destinations. An example of such a community is TripAdvisor, this website offers information on all aspects of travel, and destinations worldwide. Through this form of information and advice, although these types of communities offer advice and ratings, these ratings could both deter and attract potential guests.


The way information can so easily be used, altered and accessed has been considered to alter the very framework or "cultural condition" which we live in. Through this easy of information access, it has been mentioned that society are becoming experts, and the careers which once were held in the highest esteem, are not held in the same light (Voase, 2002,P394), this train of thought put forward by Voase could be exemplified through the issue of travel agents, these agents at one time were considered to know everything to do with destinations and all travel aspects, however through societies access to information they have become the experts and the need for travel agents is not as required. However it has been further noted that through the cultural change, what was once considered the Grand Narratives which surrounded ideals such as religion, science and politics (Schulmen,2011) have shifted and instead Lesser narratives came into being. The Lesser narratives can be explained through the breakdown of information such as the Internet and media. However, the information although accessible can be considered"…deathlessness and a new kind of superficiality in the most literal sense… (Jameson,1984, p60). The information provided to tourists, is not often questioned, the reasoning behind certain locations being portrayed in a certain way or the reasons why a certain destination was placed at the top of a list, as the number one holiday choice, rather its is taken in, but not understood.

Bibliography

Schudson, M (2003). The Sociology of News. New York: W.W. Norton & Company . 1-5.

Schulman, J. (2011). In defense of Grand Narratives . Available: http://jacobinmag.com/spring-2011/in-defense-of-grand-narratives/. Last accessed 29th Feb 2012

Voase, R. (2002). Rediscovering the Imagination: investigating active and passive visitors experience in the 21st century. International journal of research. 4 (5), 391-399.



Commentary on \
Author: Magnus Sandberg
Habron raised some interesting thoughts around socialization and how it affects us as tourists. The paper fits well into the strand and is closely related to the one I wrote. I found this paper by reading through the ones with interesting titles and those who I thought I could relate to.

Habron successfully dealt with the question of how great of an impact media can have in influencing tourism preferences. It is clearly demonstrated with examples and educated thoughts around them, such as how media's attention on crisis in specific areas works as warning signal for tourists which makes many avoid that particular destination. The author at the same time acknowledges an important fact, that media can communicate a destination as a good place for the time being and thus motivate tourists to travel there.

Further the author points out that the expanding use of internet as an information source makes it easier and easier to gather information about travel destinations and that this reflects the present cultural condition, which we live in. As we are becoming "experts" in searching information, we become more and more educated in subjects of interest. As Habron states, the information we access can be of misleading nature. This is why we always have to be critical when we collect information on these modern, often crowd sourced platforms. Not everyone has developed ability to criticize information and therefor everyone might not question the validity of portraits painted for a destination, or why a destination is highly ranked.

I like to think that if people learn to question the information they are being fed with, it will all support choices in tourism as well as in any other aspect of life. If we see people as perfectly rational beings, all information, negative or positive will be taken in mind, evaluated, weighed and finally result in a preference, a product perfectly shaped based on the informational input. However, this is not the case today as we are generally very naive and try to adapt to our environment in the easiest way possible. This means a lot of people will keep being misinformed and act based on this misinformation for the nearest future.

Habron provides an example of good practice combining subjects as psychology and sociology into modern, developing tourism theories. I believe this is a very interesting topic and I recognize these theories can well be applied subjects other than tourism as well.